


take it easy baby, make it last all night

by missparker



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU where I write whatever i want basically, Canon What Canon, F/M, Starfleet Academy, pre-series AU, when Tom Paris and Nick Locarno are the same character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missparker/pseuds/missparker
Summary: Fresh out of a Cardassian prison, Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway rashly decides to decline another posting on a Starship and take a safer teaching job at Starfleet Academy instead. Angry and disappointed, Vice Admiral Owen Paris places his own son, currently on probation, in her office so that his two problems can keep an eye on one another.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Comments: 90
Kudos: 132





	1. after all it was a great big world

_And for one desperate moment there_  
_He crept back in her memory_  
_God it's so painful_  
_Something that's so close_  
_And still so far out of reach_

**American Girl \- Tom Petty**

*

“You’re the one my dad complains about,” is the first thing he ever says to her. He regrets it immediately. Before it’s even all the way out of his mouth he wants to retract it, to pluck the words from the air and swallow them back up again. 

Her face betrays surprise and hurt and cold fury all in rapid succession.

“I mean,” he says, his face already warming, heat crawling down the back of his neck. “Sorry, I just meant -”

“You must be Ensign Paris,” she says, her tone unfriendly and each word clipped. Her voice is low, almost gravely, and it manages to slice right through him.

“Yes, sir,” he says. 

She’s behind her desk, the large screen dim behind her. Classes don’t start for another day. She has PADDs spread out in front of her, a silver mug of coffee with a red half moon of lipstick on the rim. But she’s standing, had stood the moment he came in. She glares at him now. 

“I don’t support nepotism, no matter how it’s packaged,” she says. “But in this instance, I was overruled, so you and I are going to need to make this work for a semester.” 

“I need to apologize,” Tom says, hoping to salvage this. “I merely meant my father thought you ought to have taken an assignment on a ship, that’s all.” 

“I know what your father thinks of me,” she says very softly. “What you need to be concerned about now, Ensign Paris, is what I think of you.” 

“Yes, sir,” he says. 

“If you think this assignment is just a stepping stone to something else, if you think working for me is going to be the same as scrolling through a magazine in a waiting room, then you’re wasting my time and your own.” 

Her gray eyes bore into his.

“No, sir,” he says. “I’m here to help. Ready to do whatever you need.” 

“Good,” she says. “I’ll transfer you my syllabus, give you codes for the system. I need lab help more than a teaching assistant so I doubt you’ll need to spend much time in here.” 

“Yes, sir,” he says. 

She sighs, rubs her left temple and says, “I prefer ma’am or Lieutenant Commander.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he corrects. 

“Dismissed, Ensign,” she says. 

He doesn’t push it. He turns and goes, not stopping until he breaches the building and feels the cool air on his hot cheeks. He takes a deep breath and then another, a little rattled and very annoyed at himself for the miscalculation.

Why had he thought that friendly and familiar was the way to approach his new boss and superior officer?

It’s just that his father had spoken about her with such warmth and fondness, even through the disappointment of her deciding to take a desk job. 

“Katie Janeway has a first class mind and nerves of steel, she should be on a starship!” his father had ranted over dinner. His mother had been patient for awhile but that had bled into overt annoyance as the days went by. She’d accused him of loving her like a daughter which wasn’t fair to his own daughters - the same daughters he was never home enough to spend time with or loving her another way. Either, to Tom’s mother, was unacceptable.

Tom was used to his parents fighting about his father’s career but he wasn’t used to his mother accusing his father falling for a subordinate officer. 

He’d wished, not for the first time, that he could just move out. Out of his childhood bedroom, out of his parent’s house, out of California, off of this planet. 

Instead, he’d had to take an assignment at the Academy, a stone’s throw away from his father’s office.

“You messed up,” his father had told him when he had complained about his limited assignment options. “You’re lucky to have any rank at all. Take your probation and be happy for it.” 

No starships or piloting of any kind for six months. No mistakes of any kind. 

And so, he’d taken a low level posting at the Academy because his father had encouraged him to do so. It was a familiar place, somewhere Tom could find his footing again. 

The admiral had taken some amount of pity on him, though. “Let me ask around, see if anyone needs a teaching assistant. I’ll find you something interesting, okay, kiddo?”

He thinks now, walking toward the center of campus, that his assignment with Lieutenant Commander Janeway is less about things being interesting for Tom and more about Tom being a source of information for his father on his former prized crew member and Janeway keeping an eye on his son. With this arrangement, did he even have to pay attention to either one of them?

He climbs a series of steps and then turns around. It’s a clear day, the fog of the morning having already burnt off. He can see the bridge, can see clear across the water to the Presidio. Maybe another half a year won’t be so bad. After all, he did achieve his rank. There were several long weeks where he was sure he wasn’t going to be allowed to graduate at all. Being on campus feels a little like being held back a year, but he isn’t a cadet, he’s an Ensign, and no one can tell he’s on probation just by looking at the pip on his neck. 

He prefers to fly, but teaching isn’t the worst thing. He can do lab work, if required of him. He can do anything for six months. 

He can hear someone coming up the stairs behind him, so he continues his walk toward the center of campus where the transporter station is. He’ll transport home, have dinner with his family. Get some sleep and return again tomorrow, ready to win Lieutenant Commander Janeway over with some good, old-fashioned Tom Paris charm.

oooo

Kathryn wakes up and has to change her bedding again. Why is it that she only wakes up sweaty from the dreams that feature Cardassians? She has plenty of unpleasant dreams about missed deadlines and former colleagues laughing at an error she makes that don’t result in her waking panting, terrified, and drenched in sweat. 

She yanks the cover off her mattress and shoves it into the recycler. The chronometer above her replicator lets her know it’s only an hour before her alarm is scheduled to go off anyway. She won’t fall back to sleep again. Not after that dream. 

She strips, leaves her clothes on the floor and then steps into the shower, mashing her palm into the button to start the sonic cycle. It leaves a sweaty imprint that she can see for just a split second before the sonic waves whisk it away. She tries to take the three minute cycle to shake the dream off completely. 

She spits onto the floor of her shower, though the saliva dissipates before reaching the floor. She can still taste the rancid taste of the reed in her mouth from the dream, still feel the gritty mud from the swamp filling her ears. That’s how one escapes the Cardassians after all, how one dodges their terrible hounds taught to kill whatever they catch between their jaws. One has to hide like a coward in a swamp, like a terrified child.

The shower beeps and the cycle ends and she’s standing naked, shaking a little. Mornings are always tough.

Still, by the time she has her uniform on and her hair pinned up, by the time she has some hot porridge in her stomach and a cup of coffee, too, she feels more herself and the absolute terror of the morning seems silly and irrational. She’d done the mandatory counseling sessions, she’d been cleared for duty. She ought to be fine by now. 

And she _is_ fine, really. She makes good decisions, she doesn’t put herself or others in danger. She can focus on the work, she can multitask, she can meet deadlines. It’s just a few bad dreams, it’s just a few rough mornings a week. 

She has rationalized it all away by the time she leaves her apartment and hits street level. She lives on the seventeenth floor of this building, chosen because it was so big and crammed full of units. She doesn’t have to live in Starfleet housing, she doesn’t even have to live in the Bay Area if she doesn’t want to, but after her last tour of duty, there was something compelling about her entire life happening in the same twenty-five kilometer radius. She’s just two stops away on the rapid transit train to the Academy and she’d chosen this building specifically because the units are small and close together. 

Like quarters on a starship. 

When she’d turned down an assignment on the _USS Billings_ , her mother had offered to let her come home for awhile and continue her recovery. Kathryn had turned that down as well, letting her mother know that she was already recovered, that she just wasn’t interested in leaving the sciences for a Command track assignment, that with a position teaching at the Academy, she could use her previous experience on a starship to help prepare cadets for a life in space and could also have time to work on her more scientific endeavors. 

“You’re a smart girl, kitty cat, but you’ve never wanted to be an academic,” her mother had said.

“People change,” Kathryn had replied.

Kathryn does believe that people can change because she sees that change in herself. She’d always had a burning drive, an insatiable need to be the best, to achieve the most, to get as far as she could go on ambition and hard work, but in the months following her disembarkment from the _Al-Bantani_ , that drive seems to have burned itself out. She still wants to do good work but the constant climb to greater heights now feels like an exhausting goal at best. 

She knows that it’s Owen Paris that is the most disappointed in her. Her mother had thrown her hands up, deferred to her daughter’s judgement in regards to her own career. But Owen Paris had dressed her down again and again. She was throwing away her career, she was putting herself into a slow lane where she’d have real trouble achieving the kind of rank they’d once talked about. She was giving up.

They’d both earned a promotion as a result of their last mission together - she’d made the jump to Lieutenant Commander and he to Vice Admiral and that was nothing to scoff at. She’s twenty-nine years old! She’d spent eighteen months as an ensign when most people spend a minimum of two years in that rank. She’d another year and a half in the junior grade of lieutenant, and then not four full years as a Lieutenant before achieving this last rank. When Owen’s son had entered the academy, he’d still been a Commander, teaching survival courses. So to scoff at her choice to remain on Earth when she’d achieved what he had in half the time, practically, is-

She nearly bumps into the back of someone when she turns the corner to enter the transit station.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. She’d been lost in her own thoughts again, getting angrier and angrier as she’d walked. 

Trains come every two minutes and she’d just missed the last one. She finds an empty piece of wall to lean against and lets her eyes slip shut for just a moment. It’s very tiring to be angry all the time, she’s finding. At least she’s only angry about Vice Admiral Paris when she thinks about him. She’d brushed off his concerns, finally telling him that she was willing to accept the consequences of her decisions and that he had to do the same. He hasn’t talked to her since.

But three days ago, his office had contacted her to let her know that the vacancy in her department was being filled by Ensign Thomas Paris.

“It’s customary to have a say in departmental transfers, was my understanding,” she had said, careful not to show that she was upset, determined to address this evenly and logically.

“Commander Desaunti approved the transfer.” Vice Admiral Paris had inherited a new staff with his new title and so she doesn’t personally know the Lieutenant she’s speaking with.

“He went over my head,” Kathryn said, despite herself. She knew she sounded petulant. So much for being even keeled. 

“As is his prerogative, sir,” the Lieutenant had curtly replied. 

If she’s only mad about Owen Paris when he occupies her thoughts, then it’s going to be difficult to not think about him when she has to look at his son every day. He’d been insubordinate right off the bat, too friendly, too intimate. She understands that when a parent is a high ranking officer, respecting a higher rank becomes more of an effort but it’s not an excuse not to make the effort at all. 

What did Ensign Paris expect? That she’d want to be his pal? That serving with his father would endear him to her? Serving with his father had been grueling, serving with his father had ended her up in a Cardassian prison. And then, his father had made it clear that she was throwing her life away by not appreciating what he’d done for her. 

She’ll find things to keep Ensign Paris out of sight and out of mind, that’s all. 

It’s so early in the day, she expects the whole department to be dark, but when she presses her finger to the panel by the door, it chirps and reveals a well lit outer office that smells like coffee. Her department consists of two other officers who are teaching a full class load and two teaching assistants between them. As it’s the beginning of the semester, their assistant positions had been vacant - generally one is reserved for a cadet in their senior year and the other to someone newly graduated, intent on starting an academic career of their own. 

It’s fine, on paper, that it’s Ensign Paris but she knows for a fact that he’s no academic. He’s a pilot, a flyboy. He may have an aptitude for quantum physics, he’d have to have at least a base level understanding to fly a starship, but he’s no theoretical physicist. 

Her office is still dark, but when she calls for the lights, she can see that there is a silver carafe sitting in the middle of her desk. She sets her bag down on the chair and looks at it with some suspicion, picking it up slowly and pushing the button that retracts the lid.

Coffee. It’s coffee, it’s why the office smells like coffee.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Ensign Paris says from her door. “I always stop at that cafe a few blocks from here. I figured a little extra couldn’t hurt on the first day of classes.”

“I don’t need your bribery,” she says, pushing the button again and letting the lid snap shut. She sets it on the far edge of the desk, closest to him.

“Not much of a bribe,” he says. “If I was trying to bribe you, I’d do better than that.”

“I don’t need your kindness, then,” she says. 

“We all need kindness,” he counters. “Ma’am.”

That’s annoyingly hard to argue with. 

“Please don’t enter my office without permission,” she settles on. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

It’s hard to feel like she’d gotten the better end of that exchange. 

“I have an appointment with Commander Desaunti at 0900,” Ensign Paris says. “Is there anything you’d like me to do before that?”

“That’s your desk,” she says, pointing at the outer office through her door. “You can familiarize yourself with it.” 

It’s a dismissal, it’s an order to get out of her face. But the truth is, while this job isn’t considered a command assignment, it’s the first time she’s a division head and will have people reporting directly to her outside of simply outranking them. She’ll have to craft long term duty assignments, do evaluations for Ensign Paris and whatever cadet they end up taking on. She won’t have to evaluate the two other professors that share her rank, that will fall to Commander Desaunti, but she is responsible for running this small office space and doling out resources and lab time.

And that’s on top of all her classes. 

For the first time, she feels a real pang of fear that Owen Paris had been right and she has thrown her life away. If she the whole academic year here teaching, it doesn’t mean she can’t take a ship assignment later on, but practical experience always trumps desk work and she’s at the very least going to fall behind her graduating class, even if she already outranks most, if not all, of them. 

She hears the outer doors swish open and then voices - Lieutenant Commander Prisu has arrived. She specializes in particle physics and is only teaching one basic course this semester, choosing to spend most of her time in the lab working on her project to create shielding that can withstand much higher levels of radiation. Maybe Prisu will want Ensign Paris as her primary lab assistant - after all, he may have some insight into starship shielding that Prisu could find valuable and certainly a Vulcan will be better equipped to handle, or at least more immune, to Paris’s smarmy attempts at charm.

She’ll mention it in their staff meeting. 

Kathryn is teaching three classes this semester. Two sessions of astrophysics and a single astrotheory class. 

She has an hour before her first class begins and a syllabus to polish up, so she blocks out the sounds of the outer office and gets to work.

oooo

Tom’s bedroom is the smallest of the three upstairs bedrooms in his parent’s house. The larger two had gone to his older sisters and the master bedroom is downstairs. Moira and Kathleen have long since moved out of this house so he could, in theory, move to a different room. Moira’s is the largest, but Kathleen’s faces the backyard, has the best windows and the best light. 

He doesn’t mind this little room, however, or the narrow bed. The sloped walls, the creaky floor. It’s the closest to the bathroom and tucked away so that no one can sneak up on him because he can always hear them walking down the hall. 

Now, he’s stretched out on the bed with the console balanced on his belly and he’s looking up Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway’s father. 

Vice Admiral Edward Janeway’s public service record is so classified that it’s difficult to read. Past his service number, his birth date, and his rank, there’s not much to go on. His current listing is classified as well. It’s a frustratingly little amount of information and it gives him no insight into his daughter. He’s met the Janeway family, he knows, though he remembers very little past a few instances of shaking Admiral Janeway’s hand at one function or another. 

Tom sets the console back on his small, wooden desk and decides to go downstairs.

His mother had always cooked the old fashioned way, relying on the replicator only for ingredients she couldn’t get fresh. His mother was why they lived in this old house, too. Portola Valley is a very beautiful, still somewhat exclusive area populated with diplomats and Admirals and other important figures who frequent Starfleet headquarters. Julia Paris had only agreed to move here if it was into this 200-year-old house where she could putter around and do as she pleased. It meant creaky floors, it meant an outdated computer system, it meant that his father rarely worked from home.

His father is away now, would come home late, probably. Tom has no idea what it is that he’s working on lately, knows better than to inquire.

“Can I ask you a question?” Tom asks, hovering in the doorway to the living space where his mother sat, reading by lamplight. 

“I was just about to start dinner,” Julia says, setting the PADD down. 

“It’s not about dinner,” Tom says, entering the room and sitting on the couch. “It’s about the Janeways.” 

His mother’s body language says more than enough. She tenses up, her face goes neutral. 

“You surely know more than I do,” his mother says. 

“Mom, she doesn’t seem like… I think any infatuation dad had was completely one-sided,” Tom says. 

Julia doesn’t take the bait. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Sure, fine,” he says. “I was more curious about her father. He’s a Vice Admiral, too.”

“Yes, I believe he was at the Academy with Owen,” she says. “Or around the same time, anyway.”

“He’s not at headquarters, I can’t figure out his assignment,” Tom says. “Do you know anything?”

“Why would I know anything about an Admiral’s duty assignment?” Julia scoffs.

Tom shrugs. “Husbands talk to their wives.”

“Honey,” she says. “We don’t… talk about things like that anymore.”

“I see.”

“All I know, and it really is all of it, is that Edward has been dark for months and months.”

“Really?” he asks. “That long? No contact?”

“Gretchen Janeway is used to that, I imagine,” Julia says. “We aren’t friends but we’re friendly.”

“Huh.”

“Now, do you have any requests for dinner?” she asks, standing up. 

“I can just replicate something,” Tom says.

“No, no, let me cook,” she says. “I never have anyone to cook for, anymore.”

He nods. “Okay. Dealer’s choice, then.”

She smiles at him, pats his face, heads to the kitchen.

oooo

Teaching is more exhausting than being a cadet. 

No, Kathryn, thinks, not that’s not true. But the first day of classes is certainly harder on her than on the cadets. Her voice feels raw from lecturing. She’s used to closer quarters, she didn’t know that projecting one’s voice to a large room would take so much effort. There must be some sort of skill involved, some technique. She’ll have to learn it. 

A few cadets thank her on the way out. She has mostly first and second years - her area is foundational to so many disciplines that it’s difficult to go very long without working some sort of astrophysics lesson into a class load. 

She’s tidying up, tossing PADDs into her bag when the door hisses. She glances up, expecting to find herself alone in the classroom as the last cadet makes their way out, but instead she sees, walking toward her, Ensign Paris.

“I’ll clean up for you,” he says. 

“That’s not necessary,” she says, fastening her bag closed.

“On the contrary, ma’am, classroom maintenance is in my job description,” he says. 

She glances up, now. He looks more like his mother but he has those blue eyes that Admiral Paris has and it’s unsettling to face something she’s long associated with fear and respect so wildly out of context. 

“Is that so?” she asks. “Well, feel free to push in the chairs.”

He smirks, drops his head. “I also can set up for your lessons tomorrow. All you have to do is walk in and start lecturing.” He runs his hands through his hair. “As long as you stick to your syllabus.” 

She’s annoyed because that would be helpful. 

“Fine,” she says, shouldering her bag. She walks past him, headed toward the exits.

“I’ll do the chairs, too,” he calls after her. 

She can hear the near sarcasm in his voice, so she ignores him.

But when she gets back to the office, Lieutenant Commander Jetic and Lieutenant Commander Prisu are both in the outer office.

“Kathryn,” Jetic says when she comes in. “Did Ensign Paris find you?”

“He did,” she says.

“Good,” Jetic says. “He’s eager to be helpful.”

“I’ll say,” she mutters, taking her bag into her office. They both follow her in. “Come on in, I suppose.”

Prisu steeples her fingers in thought and says, “I am grateful to you for providing extra time for him to assist me in the lab. He has already proven himself to be an able assistant.”

Kathryn looks both of them in the eyes. “You like him?”

“Sure,” Jetic says. Jetic is Bajoran, new to the department like she is. She suspects they both vied for the Department head position, but he’s shown no resentment toward her for getting it. In fact, he’s friendly. They’ve had coffee once or twice, platonically. At least it is, for her. 

“We do need to schedule interviews with cadets for the vacancy,” Prisu says. “Applications have already come in.”

“I know,” she says. 

“Perhaps Ensign Paris could narrow them to a viable pool for us,” Prisu offers. 

“I’ve blocked off time for interviews next week,” Kathryn says. 

Prisu bows her head. “Very well.” 

“I can narrow them,” she says. “How many have we gotten so far?”

“75,” Jetic says with a grin. 

Kathryn rolls her eyes. They have ten slots for interviews and she’d hoped that they wouldn’t have to do all ten. 

“Wonderful,” she says dryly. 

Prisu excuses herself but Jetic hangs around. 

“Something else?” she asks.

“Are you armed?” he asks.

“What?”

“Because I want to say something, but I don’t want to get shot,” he says. 

She compresses her lips, biting back any number of retorts. “You, of course, may speak freely.” 

“I know you weren’t happy with Desaunti accepting Paris above your head,” Jetic says. Kathryn opens her mouth to defend herself but he holds up a hand to stop her. “It’s no secret who his father is, but I’m not sure it’s fair to take that out on him.”

“I’m not taking anything out on anyone,” she says. “I have nothing to… I chose this assignment. It has nothing to do with my time on the _Al-Batani_.”

Jetic nods. “Is it the probation that has you upset?”

“I’m not upset,” she says though she can hear in her own voice that she sounds unconvincing. She sits down in her chair and he sits across from her. “Listen, between you and me, I think Ensign Paris did the right thing in reporting his flight squadron.”

“He was their leader!” Jetic says.

“That maneuver is banned for a reason,” Kathryn says. “It’s so dangerous. And even though he agreed to it at the start, the important thing was that he realized it was a bad idea. Once his squadron disobeyed his orders to call it off, what choice did he have but to turn them in?” 

Jetic had a small smile. 

“So you did read up on him,” he says.

“I read his personnel file,” she snaps. “As I would any incoming officer.”

“Okay,” he says. “Anyway, Prisu likes him and she doesn’t like anything.”

“That’s not true,” Kathryn says. “That’s a Vulcan stereotype.”

He holds up his hands in defeat. “You want to go get some dinner?” Jetic asks. 

“I want to go home,” she says. 

He shrugs. “See you tomorrow.” 

When she gets home, her console is blinking at her desk. She activates the screen to see a message from her mother.

She feels a little wave of panic but reaches out to press play.

_“Hi kitty, just checking in that I’ll see you for dinner on Friday. Phoebe’s coming, she’s got a new boyfriend, I guess, that she wants me to meet. You could bring someone, too! I’ll make brownies. I love you.”_

Her mother’s face freezes at the end of the message and she studies her. She’s got lines on her face, gray in her hair, but she looks very much unchanged, otherwise. Still slim, still tan from working out in the garden. It’s September now and fall is Kathryn’s favorite time in Indiana. She should want to go. 

But it’s been difficult to spend time with her mother since her last duty tour ended. It’s like her mother can see through her somehow, it’s like she’s disappointed which is hard to bear. As for Phoebe, she’s not particularly close to her sister. They don’t have anything in common. Phoebe hates Starfleet, Phoebe thinks Kathryn has a stick up her butt because she likes order, because she wants to contribute something to the advancement of society. 

And she’ll have to meet a new boyfriend? Again? Every time Phoebe comes home, she brings someone new for them to meet that they’ll never see again. Last time she saw her sister, Phoebe had given her grief over breaking up with Justin, like she had any room to talk. Phoebe had more ex-boyfriends than Kathryn could keep track of.

“He took a deep space assignment, I didn’t,” Kathryn had said. “That’s the nature of the job.” 

“It’s a stupid job,” Phoebe had said. “Are you just supposed to break up with someone every time your job changes?”

“I’m sorry that I can’t make breaking up with people a hobby, like you do,” Kathryn had retorted.

Anyway, it hadn’t gone well, from there.

She’s not looking forward to seeing Phoebe, is all. But canceling won’t help. Her mother would just come to her and that would be infinitely worse. She doesn’t want her mother in her little apartment. She likes that no one comes here. It feels like a safe space for her and she doesn’t want that to be breached. 

She wishes, not for the first time, that her father was home. It’s just been so long since she’s gotten to talk to him and she can’t help but worry that when he does resurface, he’s going to be just as disappointed in her as Owen Paris. She’d never chosen a duty assignment without her father’s input before and now she’s worried she’s messed it up entirely.

She tells the console to delete the message and go dark. She replicates a salad and eats it, then drinks a glass of water. She cleans her teeth. She dresses for bed. 

She could read for awhile, she could catch up with the newsfeeds, she could do any number of things, but the truth of the matter is she’s tired and the only reason she’s putting off climbing into bed is because she’s tired of having nightmares. 

Determined not to be ridiculous, she dims the lights and puts herself to bed.

oooo

Kathryn Janeway walks into the Night Owl and orders a cup of coffee to go. Tom’s got a great vantage point to watch this interaction. He’s sitting at a small table near the station with the creamers and sweeteners and while he can see her, it’s unlikely that she’ll see him unless something draws her attention specifically. 

She looks small in the line, she’s petite. Her hair is down today and the sun shines through the glass door onto her. Her hair looks auburn in the light, especially against the blue of her uniform. 

Spaceship regulations are much more strict regarding things like jewelry and long hair being up or short enough to be above the shoulder but for Academy faculty, the regulations are much more relaxed. 

He thinks he’ll talk to her if she comes over to doctor up her coffee. When she reaches out to take her cup, the man at the till says something that makes her laugh. He hands her something, a small pastry bag. 

She must be a regular here. It makes sense. One of the few things he knew about her outside of her service record was that she was a coffee drinker, something his father had mentioned once, in passing. This is a popular cafe close to campus for officers and cadets alike. 

His plan is to just keep being nice to her, relentlessly respectful and nice. Helpful, if he can manage it. He understands, after all, how his father can be. What carrying Owen Paris’s disappointment feels like. He’s uniquely familiar with that. 

She doesn’t take cream in her coffee.

He doesn’t mean to follow her, it’s just that they’re going to the same place. 

He’s keeping what he feels is a respectful distance, matching her pace so he doesn’t overtake her. 

He loses sight of her when she turns the corner and so he’s unaware that she has stopped and when he makes the turn himself, she’s there, leaning against a retaining wall and she’s looking right at him. She doesn’t seem happy.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he says. Respectfully and nicely. 

“I prefer not to be stalked in the mornings, Ensign,” she says.

“In my defense, we’re going to the same place, ma’am,” he replies. 

“I saw you in the Night Owl.”

“Ah,” he says. “Can you blame me, then, for leaving when you did? Would you prefer me to be late?”

She resumes walking without comment so he falls in next to her. She walks fast, perhaps because she’s not tall and she’s learned to compensate for everyone having longer legs. 

“So you do like coffee, then,” he says. 

“Not in the mood, Ensign,” she says. 

“Roger that,” he says, and shuts up. 

When they get in the office, he busies himself turning on the lights, getting ready for the day. She disappears into her office. There’s an open door culture here and she seems to abide by that, even though Starships are different. He knows it’s not unusual for officers to have a rough transition from a starship back to a planetside job, but he suspects it’s easier for someone like Janeway or himself, people who grew up with parents in Starfleet, who spent time in their father’s offices. 

She comes back out holding a PADD. 

“I have a meeting,” she says. He can see the public office calendar, he knows there’s a meeting for division heads. It’s a big deal, it’s Academy wide. It happens twice a year, it’s going to take the whole morning.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. 

“I’d like for you to close the posting for the cadet position and start weeding the applicants,” she says. She extends the PADD to him. “Some criteria that I’m looking for specifically to help you. We have ten interview slots, so if you could get the pool down to twenty, that would be helpful.”

“I can do that,” he says, taking the PADD. 

She hesitates and then says, “Thank you.” 

“I also set the classroom up through the whole semester,” he says while he has her attention. The three instructors share one classroom, so it was easy enough to write a script to key in their syllabi to their time slots. Their correct lessons will come up, now, the moment they enter the classroom. 

Janeway nods. “Prisu said you were a competent assistant. High praise.”

“No one expects a pilot to be able to follow basic instructions,” he says. She almost cracks a smile. He almost gets her to.

The door opens and Jetic enters. “Good morning!” 

“Just leaving,” Janeway says and makes her escape.

“How’d that go?” Jetic asks with a grin. 

“She accused me of stalking her because I was behind her on the sidewalk,” Tom says. “But then I almost made her laugh, I think.”

“Keep at it,” he says. “You’ll find some common ground.”

“You mean besides being a huge disappointment to my father?” he asks. 

Jetic laughs. “Yeah, perhaps find a second thing.” And he heads into his office.

Tom wakes up his console and finds the drive containing the applications. One hundred and seven. Great. He closes the listing before his life can get any more complicated and then starts reading them, one by one.

oooo

Mostly she can put missing her father out of her head, but it’s hard to do so when she’s at her childhood home. Her mother is used to being an Admiral’s wife and she brushes off any attempts her daughters make to talk about it. 

Kathryn is mindful of her mother’s feelings but at least knows better than to ask for news. Phoebe, however, peppers her with questions.

“Do you know where he is yet? What he’s doing? Do you get to talk to him? When is he coming home?” Phoebe demands in rapid succession and her mother finally waves her hands around her face, as if she’s swatting the questions away like a swarming pest. 

“Kathryn,” her mother says pleadingly.

“No to all,” Kathryn says, lifting the lid to her mother’s stockpot to see what’s simmering inside. It looks like a whole chicken, maybe a duck, surrounded by vegetables. They always seem to stand around in the kitchen even though there are other more comfortable rooms. 

“But-”

“Pheebs, if we knew anything, we’d tell you,” Kathryn says. “But ultimately no news is good news.” 

“How do you figure that?” Phoebe asks, sounding snotty. Kathryn wants to smack her across the face but, as always, resists the urge. 

“If someone calls us with information it’s probably because he’s dead,” Kathryn says, deciding to tell the truth. Her father had always pulled punches as far as Phoebe was concerned when it came to the realities of Starfleet because she wasn’t in it but Kathryn doesn’t see the value in that at this point. 

“Oh,” Phoebe says softly.

“Best case scenario is one day,” Kathryn says, pointing out the kitchen window. “He comes walking down that path.” 

“And we’re just supposed to be okay with that?” she asks.

Kathryn shrugs. “Okay or not, it’s what it is.” 

Her mother says nothing, sitting at the table, making biscuit dough.

“Anyway, where’s this new boyfriend of yours?” she asks. 

“Oh, he’s seeing some friends tonight, but he’ll be here in the morning for breakfast,” Phoebe says. “And he’s not new, we’ve been dating for two months!”

“Forgive me,” Kathryn says, rolling her eyes.

“You’ll spend the night, won’t you, kitty cat?” her mother asks. Her plan all along, no doubt.

Kathryn tries not to sigh audibly. 

“Sure,” she says. “Why not.” 

For as independent and capable as her mother is, Kathryn knows that she must not like always being alone in this big old house day in and day out. She has some friends in the community and there are always support groups for the civilian husbands and wives of high ranking Starfleet officials but Gretchen Janeway has never been particularly interested in those. 

“So you can change out of the uniform then?” Phoebe asks. 

Kathryn wants to retort back some snappy, hurtful reply but for the sake of her mother, she skips it and just climbs the stairs. 

She knows she has things in the closet of her childhood bedroom. She spent about six weeks here when she’d finished her tour on the _Al-Batani_. She’d had to work her therapy program, obtain her clearance to return to work. That had taken longer than she’d expected. And then she’d had to sort through her assignment options. Admiral Paris had even met her to go over her options. He’d come to Indiana, they’d borrowed an office in a Starfleet facility in Indianapolis.

“You could come to the house,” she’d offered but he’d made some excuse about not wanting to inconvenience Gretchen and so they’d found a more neutral location. She could have easily gone to headquarters but he hadn’t wanted that, either. 

When she saw him there, in that office on Delaware street, she’d realized that he wasn’t in his Captain’s uniform anymore, but an Admiral’s uniform, and that he was holding a velvet box with another pip for her. He stood close enough to her, to fasten it on the collar of her uniform, that she could smell his cologne. A woodsy, pine smell, like he’d been hiking or slept next to a smoldering campfire. 

They’d shaken hands, someone had taken a holoimage for her file. She was grateful, of course, but a promotion was usually something one invited one’s family to. It had felt so strange that they’d done it in an obscure building, practically all alone.

After, he’d shown her some available duty assignments. There was a slot on the _Enterprise_ , there was a decent three year assignment on Jupiter Station, and there was the _USS Billings_.

“That’s the one for you, Kathryn,” Admiral Paris had said. “That’s your choice. They asked for you, you know.” 

She’d taken the list home to think about it, had stretched out on the bed she’s stretched out on now.

Just before she’d left for the Academy, she’d redecorated this bedroom. Pulled the childish things off the walls, requested new furniture, changed the wall color. She’d, on her parent’s behalf (not that they’d asked), made her room more generic, something that could easily double as a guest room though they rarely hosted guests. 

Now she’s the guest, hiding in this stranger’s bedroom because she can’t bear to go back downstairs yet. 

She should at least do what she came up here to do. In the closet, she pulls out a pair of slacks, a blouse that buttons down the front. She folds up her uniform, mindful of her three pips. She removes her comm badge and attaches it to her blouse. She’s used to having it on her all the time, now, but she does it just as much to annoy her sister. 

“Kath!” Phoebe calls up the stairs. Kathryn can hear it clearly through the closed door. “Soup is ready!”

oooo

Tom doesn’t sit around on the weekends. It’s the best thing about his desk job, about being chained to this planet for a partial sentence. His Monday through Friday workday. It’s certainly not the structure of life aboard a starship, but it’s up to the cadets to adapt. The faculty of the Academy, the officers who work at headquarters like the structure of a work week enough to grouse about it when it is threatened. Most high level officers end up working strange hours, strange days, strange time zones, but clerical staff, which is essentially what Tom is, do a five on two off. He’d lucked into having Saturday and Sunday off. 

This fine, foggy Saturday, he packs up a leather bag with a few things - a sweater, some ration bars, a container of water, the novel he’s been reading. And then, quite early, he takes his bag and his leather jacket and creeps quietly out of the house, mindful to take care when passing his parent’s room on the way out of the front door. Around the side of the house is a large storage shed and inside of that is his hover bike. 

It doesn’t count as flying, he’d double checked. 

He takes it wheels it out and down the driveway, past the gates and onto the street before he mounts it and presses the button to activate the panel. It doesn’t make a lot of noise, but enough that he doesn’t want to start it outside of his father’s window. 

Hopefully, by the time his father wakes up, Tom will be 100 kilometers away. His leather jacket keeps him warm through the fog, his helmet protecting his face as he rides north, skirting the length of the bay. In Mill Valley, he moves inland to go around Point Reyes, not because it isn’t a beautiful ride but because it will be populated with hikers and campers this early in the fall, the high heat of the summer now behind them. 

He makes it up past Novato and then when he hits Petaluma, he heads west again and doesn’t stop until he sees the ocean. Bodega Bay is his favorite town in all of California. It’s still small, it’s like a town caught in the amber of time. The residents have been the same families for hundreds of years and they’re not interested in expansion or technology or Starfleet. There’s a small marine facility, a thriving fishing community, and one of the best bars in the country. Maybe on the planet. 

Today, he’s not here to spend the whole day in a bar. There are days when he is, but today, he feels okay about his life. He still struggles with his probation, still struggles with the way his flight squadron has turned their back on him. 

Maybe it’s what he deserves. It had been his idea, after all. To try the Starburst Maneuver, to wow the spectators with their skill. But the first run through had been nearly deadly and he never could make any simulation run correctly. He could get it to run through, sure, but not if he added any likely variables. He’d started having nightmares about it, about his friends dying and then he’d told them it was off. 

But when he’d been in the shuttle, about to start a practice run, his shuttle controls had been overridden. They’d written a script to lock him out, to attempt the maneuver without his consent. Two shuttles collided, there had been considerable damage. He easily, easily could have died, any one of them could have.

And so, he’d turned them in with the shuttle damage and the flight footage as his proof. 

Three expulsions. He got probation. Solomack had to redo his last semester as a cadet and sit exams again. Tom isn’t sure what he said or did to weasel out of expulsion and he’s never going to know. He’s just grateful he didn’t receive the same fate. The benefits of being a snitch.

They’ll never forgive him. 

But he doesn’t need their forgiveness. He can live with their anger. He doesn’t think he’d be able to live with their deaths on his conscience. And sure, he’d like to be on some deep space mission right now, piloting a starship. But this isn’t that bad, really. Days where he can ride his bike up the coast, park it near the water, watch the waves while he eats his first meal of the day. 

He spends an hour reading in the sand before the weather turns and it starts to rain, so he puts his helmet on, rides his bike back into town and parks it on the main street that runs through downtown. 

He can spend an hour in a cafe, reevaluate. If the weather doesn’t clear, he can sit in the bar. If it does, he can ride around more. Do the whole shore line, past the Hole in the Head, up to Salmon Creek. Hell, he can ride all the way up to Jenner, to Sea Ranch, to Point Arena. It’s not even noon. 

He doesn’t have the freedom of the whole universe right now, but he has some freedom.

He slips into a booth in the local cafe, orders a cup of coffee. Thinks about Kathryn Janeway, not for the first time today.

Not for the last. 

oooo

Paris’s classroom set up is really nice. When she walks in, the room lights up and the computer even says, “Good morning, Lieutenant Commander Janeway.” 

It’s not necessary, but it’s nice all the same. 

She’s beginning to reconsider her attitude toward him, which is annoying. She’d been upset about his appointment for several reasons - she’d had no say in the matter, Owen Paris’s disappointment was still stinging right under her skin, and she’d figured Owen’s son would be an entitled little snot. She can’t remember now why she thought that. She’d looked him up and had been impressed with how he’d done the right thing when it came to his flight squadron. His record, until that point, had been fine. No one gets out of the academy completely unscathed, no one ever makes perfect decisions all the time. Deciding to try something flashy, realizing it’s a mistake and backing out of it isn’t a mortal sin. It’s forgivable and smart. She hadn’t met him before, so she hadn’t had any preconceived notions. 

And Owen Paris hadn’t spoken much about his son, but when he had, it had been generally very positive. 

She’s been unfair to Ensign Paris, taking out her own issues on him, seeing him as an extension of his father instead of his own person.

When she gets to the office, he’s sitting at his desk.

“Good morning,” she says, because it still is, technically, a few minutes before noon. 

He blinks in surprise. “Good morning, Commander,” he says. It’s still strange to her, this new rank, she has to not flinch at it. Especially now that he’s started dropping the _Lieutenant_ in front of it. It’s common, it’s cumbersome to say it all, but she still feels a bit like a fraud. Maybe like she hasn’t earned the promotion at all. What had she done for it? Survived Owen Paris and the Cardassians? Hidden until rescued? Impressed her superiors with her cockroach-like drive to stay alive?

“Thank you again for setting up the classroom,” she says, feeling contrite. “It really is helpful.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. 

She heads into her office and then stops. “How are we on those applications?”

“Twenty names,” he says. “On your console. I chose what I thought were the best candidates, but I did sort them into several categories, so you can look through them easily, if you wanted to double check the work.” 

“Great,” she says and continues into her office. She leaves the door open. She can just nearly see him, only a sliver of his back, his shoulders, his hair. She hears him greet Prisu, finds that the tapping of his fingers against a console is less irritating than it used to be as she reads over applications. 

She doesn’t have any problem with his choices, spot checks a few of the ones he didn’t choose and doesn’t feel bad about his cuts either, so she chooses the best half and forwards the ten names to Prisu and Jetic to review before interviews.

It will be strange adding another person to the mix. Cadets are always so eager, so hard on themselves. She certainly was. Ensign Paris does good work, but she can tell that he’s bored and unchallenged and is just passing time, despite his aggressively positive attitude.

A few weeks into the semester and she’ll admit, only to herself, that she’s a little tiny bit bored too. She doesn’t regret passing up the _Billings_ but for the first time in her adult life, in her career oriented life, she isn’t sure of her choice. Usually she goes with her gut and doesn’t look back but she’d been racked with indecision. Afraid of the _Billings_ , undeserving of the _Enterprise_ , reluctant to switch to a command track. So she’d chosen Earth because it was the choice that was least like a choice at all. Just staying where she was. Everyday looking more or less the same. 

“Ma’am, I’m stepping out to lunch,” Paris says, darkening her door. “Did you need anything else before I go?”

“Oh,” she says. “No, thank you, Ensign.” 

He hesitates. “Do you… never mind.” He turns away.

“It’s fine, ask away,” she says. 

“I just thought, maybe you’d like to come? Get out of here for a little while?” he asks. “I’m sorry, what you do for lunch is none of my business, ma’am.”

“Do you know what?” she says. “I could do with a walk.” 

She surprises them both. But she’d slept poorly again, had spent all morning in the classroom and maybe a walk will clear the cobwebs, wake her up. She’s had three cups of coffee and all that has done is made her jittery _and_ tired. She’s still trying to reconfigure herself to this slower paced life. She’s not sleeping, but she’s not exerting herself much either.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he says when they step outside. Not too warm, sunny but not blindingly bright. 

“Ensign Paris,” she says. “I must admit I’ve been feeling guilty about our start.”

“No,” he says. “I approached that poorly.”

“Perhaps,” she says. “But if you were anyone else, I probably wouldn’t have minded.”

“Ah,” he says. “The curse of Owen.”

“Something like that,” she agrees. “At any rate, I wanted to apologize. So far, you’ve done nothing to warrant anything but praise.” 

“Thank you, Commander,” he says. “I’m nothing like him, you know.”

“Is that so?” she asks. 

“The Admiral,” he says shaking his head. “I knew that promotion would make him insufferable.” 

She doesn’t reply because she’s not sure she agrees. For most of the time she’s known him, Owen was smart, warm, and confident. They have a different sort of personality, she can see that, but she sees aspects of Owen Paris in his son that she doesn’t think are happenstance. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I know you’re his protégé, I suppose I shouldn’t trash talk him to you.” 

“Former protégé,” she says dryly.

He’s leading them somewhere and she’s content to follow. Not to question his lunch plans. She’s not that hungry but she knows that she should be staying on a regular meal schedule. It’s fine to eat less because she’s a little less active, but she can’t let her stress dictate her appetite. She tends to stop eating when she’s under duress.

“If only his approval was as easy to get as his disappointment,” Ensign Paris says. “His standards are high and no one can meet them forever.”

“I disappointed your father,” she acknowledges. “But it’s my life, my choices. His disappointment in me is his own problem, not my burden to bear.” 

“That is the most amazing philosophy on parental disappointment I have ever heard,” he says with a grin. “I might have to steal that.”

“It’s yours to take,” she says. “Took me a long time to learn it. And anyhow, your father was certainly a revered authority figure to me, but not a parental one. I have my own Starfleet Admiral father to contend with.”

“I heard he’s been gone for awhile,” Ensign Paris says. “Any news?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t ask.” 

“How is your mom holding up?” he asks.

“Tough as nails, as always,” Kathryn says. 

He finally points to a small storefront with a green awning. “I was thinking Thai fusion.”

“What is it fused with?” she asks warily.

“Vulcan cuisine,” he says. “It actually works really well? I find it elevates the vegetarian options especially.” 

“Can we take it to go? Eat it outside?” she asks. 

“Sure.”

She gets a plomeek curry to spoon over white rice. Perhaps not the most friendly outdoor meal combination, she realizes, but there’s a secluded courtyard tucked on the edge of campus, a few blocks behind their office complex and so now she leads him and he’s just as content to follow her without any questions. 

There are a few groups of people occupying two of the tables, but three tables are vacant, so she chooses a shady one beneath a large oak tree. He sits across from her and with the table, the meal isn’t so complex. He got some sort of noodle dish, fragrant and meat filled and a little bit she’s jealous of that, too. The Thai fusion restaurant was down a little street she’d not had occasion to go down before, but now she already knows she wants to go back, or at least to see if their menu has been uploaded into the replicator database. 

They fuss with their meals for a bit - her spooning curry over her pile of rice, him getting his utensils out of their packaging. Finally she takes a bit and though it’s still hot, it’s so good. 

“Wow,” she says.

“Yeah,” he grins. “Nothing has ever been bad and I’ve tried basically the whole menu by now.” 

“I feel honored that you shared this secret with me,” she says. 

“I don’t know why it isn’t more popular,” Tom says stabbing noodles with his chopsticks. “I think that the Vulcan aspect scares people away but the fusion with Earth cuisine puts the Vulcans off. I recommended it to Commander Prisu and she was very dismissive.”

Kathryn feels a strange pang that she’s not the only one he’s told about this restaurant, like it matters at _all_ , like she cares that he’d play favorites even though she only just decided to like him this morning. She shakes it off. 

“More for us,” she says. He doesn’t respond and she glances up at him, thinking he’d really tucked in only to find him staring at her with a small smile. 

“You really aren’t what I expected, if you don’t mind me saying, ma’am,” he says. 

“Right back at you, Ensign,” she agrees.

oooo

Tom wouldn’t call them friends, but Janeway has certainly thawed toward him and that makes the day to day more tolerable for everyone. Tom gets leeway from everyone in the department, since they know he’s a temporary fixture and this is not his career ambition. He and Jetic have started playing racket ball once a week together and he spends a lot of time in the lab with Prisu. It’s her grunt work, but he doesn’t make sloppy mistakes so she isn’t hard on him. 

And the new cadet intern, Dayo Oyinlola, is only a second year but she’s so smart and funny that it’s an easy transition, folding her into the team. She takes a lot of his administrative tasks - straightening the chairs, tidying classrooms, managing the calendar, and cleaning the lab equipment. It frees him up to help more on experiments. In December, he and Prisu take a three day trip to the fleet yards on Utopia Planitia to do practical tests of their new shielding. There’s a fleet of shuttles coming off the line and Prisu wants to install their shield upgrades and do a close flyby of the sun to monitor radiation levels. 

Prisu pilots the transport shuttle, of course, and it’s hard to sit and keep his hands to himself.

“I admire your restraint, Ensign,” Prisu says. “I know your punishment must feel unjust.”

“Uncomfortable, but not unjust,” he says. “I will serve my time, but it’s certainly harder to do it while in flight.” 

“Indeed,” she says. “Perhaps you should stay behind in the yard while we make the test flight. I can bring the engineer along with me.”

“I’d prefer to go with you, but I’ll stay behind if you think that’s best, Commander,” he says. 

“Very well,” Prisu says. “It is up to you how you wish to endure your discomfort.” 

He grins. 

“I have observed you sharing meals with Commander Janeway,” she says now, changing the subject. 

“Sometimes,” he says.

“Weekly,” Prisu says. “Generally Thursdays.”

“Generally,” he agrees. 

“Jetic and I have agreed that this is a good thing,” she says.

“Oh yeah?” Tom ask. 

“Keep doing it,” Prisu says. “Humans need friendships, I have found. Her mood has much improved with yours.”

“Maybe it’s not me,” he says, surprised at this observation. “Maybe it’s the food.”

“Maybe,” Prisu says, turning back to her flight console, “it is both.” 

oooo

Bloomington again, though now the countryside is blanketed in snow and the half mile walk from the transport station to her mother’s house is far less comfortable. She’d felt a little silly walking through San Francisco with such a heavy coat but she’s glad for it now. She’ll warm up quickly once she gets back home. While the old house does have a newer environmental system installed, her mother also likes to keep a fire lit in the winter so the heart of the house is cozy as well. 

In fact, she can see the smoke before she can see the house and that’s comforting, in a way. For as much as her father’s life had become her own framework for success, her mother was always rooted in routine and she’s beginning to realize that’s its own virtue. She takes comfort in smoke in the chimney, brownies on the table, her mother reading by the lamp in her old chair. 

There’s no Phoebe this time and Kathryn is just coming for dinner. She’s not going to be bullied into spending the night. The last time she’d been so nervous about having nightmares that she just never could even fall asleep and had haunted the bedroom all night, pacing carefully, purposefully avoiding the parts of the floor that tended to shift and squeak.

And still, in the morning with bags under her eyes and yesterday’s hair, her mother had known.

“Couldn’t sleep, kitty?” she’d asked. 

She’s found that if she cuts all caffeine after one pm, she does better. And now, after work, she’s started going to the pool on campus and doing laps to tire herself out and that’s been working well enough. It doesn’t always stop the nightmares (baying hounds, the sound of that one guard who’d given her whiplash by yanking her hair back so hard, unfamiliar with the fragile skeletal system of humans, the gritty feeling of swamp in her nose and ears), but it helps with the insomnia, the endless nights she can’t fall asleep at all. 

She’s expecting her mother to be either in the kitchen or curled up reading, so it’s strange then to enter the house and hear her talking. Maybe she’s on a call? But there’s only one console in the house and that’s in her father’s office. Her mother likes confining it all to one room and, for the most part, ignoring it. 

She unzips her coat, closes the door behind her.

“That’ll be Kathryn,” she hears her mother say. 

She hangs her coat and her scarf, shoves her hat into the pocket of her coat. She’s got snow on her shoes so she has to kick the button for the little dryer to sonic it all way before she can make her way down the hall to see who is with her mother. 

She sees the uniform before the person and for one split second she hopes it’s her father, but it’s not. 

It’s Owen Paris. 

“Oh,” she says. 

“Lieutenant Commander,” he says. “Good to see you.”

He seems genuine enough. The last time they’d spoken had been tense. He’d had an edge of exasperation in his voice, it had started to creep past the disappointment and she’d been as short with him as she dared to be, dismissing his concerns with a level of finality she’d not attempted with him before. And then he’d ignored her, had sent her, instead, his son. 

So she’s wary now. 

“Admiral,” she says. “Hello.”

“Well,” Gretchen says. “Now that that’s out of the way.”

The kitchen smells like pot roast, something that’s been cooking low and slow. There will be tender potatoes and carrots, soft onions, a loaf of bread made from scratch. Maybe a green salad or a bowl of broccoli. A meal she’s had a thousand times and never tired of. 

“Are you staying for dinner?” she asks lightly. 

“I wasn’t planning on it, but your mother has convinced me,” he says.

“I wouldn’t let him tell me about Edward until you got here,” Gretchen says. 

She’d had a little thrill of excitement for the nanosecond she’d thought that it could be her father in the kitchen and that bottoming out had been uncomfortable but now it turns into a pit in her stomach of dread and worry.

She’s had a hard year - the Cardassians, breaking up with Justin who’d not wanted to wreck his career by waiting around while she figured out what she wanted out of life. Disappointing her mentor. 

She’s not sure she’ll survive her father dying. 

She must look like how she’s feeling because he holds out a hand. “We believe he’s alive.”

“Believe?” she asks.

“I’m here as a courtesy,” he says. “To your mother, because I know my wife would want the same were our positions reversed. And to you, Kathryn. In deference to the time we’ve served together.” 

It’s a mild warning for her not to demand more information. That what she gets now is what she gets.

“We believe he’s being held captive, we have an extraction team currently working to get him and his small crew out. If we’re successful, he could be home within the month,” Owen says. 

“And if you aren’t,” Gretchen says. “Dark becomes permanent.”

“Mom,” Kathryn says. “Those teams are the best. Trust me. I know.”

“You got yourself out, kitten, that team just gave you a ride,” her mother says.

“Dad is perfectly capable-”

“He’s nearly 75!” Gretchen says. “You Admirals gallivanting around like you’re still cadets, like you shouldn’t leave it to the younger men and women and work behind a desk.”

“Mother!” Kathryn says. 

“It’s fine,” Owen says. “I understand.”

From the counter, a small timer starts to beep.

“You two go wash up,” Gretchen says. “It’s nearly ready.” 

Kathryn leaves the downstairs bathroom for Owen, climbs the stairs to wash her hands in the bathroom that services the bedrooms. She stands for several moments at the sink, warm water running over her hands, all the soap long gone. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her big glassy eyes, her dark circles, her freckled skin. 

She thinks about Tom Paris. He still lives at home, he’d told her so during lunch recently. He’s been showing her other local restaurants that he likes, going farther out from campus each time. Last week, they’d had to use the transit system. She wonders if he’s home now, if he and his mother are eating alone because Owen is here, pretending to do a kindness. She thinks that it would have been better to get the news that he was either dead or alive, that a month of waiting is going to be a wholly unnecessary agony. 

Owen Paris always did like to be a hero.

She remembers him in sickbay, hovering over her biobed saying, “I wouldn’t let them leave you behind, Lieutenant,” and being touched but now, in her right mind, she thinks why would any captain leave any crew member behind, knowing there was a chance they were still alive?

When she goes back downstairs, Owen and her mother are already at the table, the food laid out. They’re waiting for her. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, taking her place. She picks up her napkin, puts it on her lap. 

“How’s work going, kitty cat?” her mother asks. 

“Yes,” Owen says. “I’m eager to hear about that myself.”

“It’s great,” she says. “I enjoy it.” 

“So you’re planning to stick with it?” he demands.

“The posting is through the academic year with an option to renew for another three years or take another posting,” she says. Which he knows, of course. “So at least for the rest of the year.”

“And then what?”

“She can’t see the future,” her mother says. She says it softly, but Kathryn can hear the warning there. 

Gretchen had never wanted to join Starfleet or marry into it, but had fallen in love with Kathryn’s father anyway. Edward could be the admiral when he needed to be but was never a bully, never brought it to the dinner table, never acted like it made him better than anyone else. Owen was exactly what Gretchen had never wanted. She doesn’t want him in her house now but is too polite to tell him to shove it. For her daughter’s sake, perhaps, or because she loves her husband more than she hates the establishment he worked for. 

“Of course,” Owen says, backing down.

“Your boy works there, isn’t that right?” Gretchen asks, finally lifting her eyes off her plate to look at Owen. 

“Yes,” he says. 

“Ensign Paris is doing a wonderful job,” Kathryn says, determined to stand up for Tom, if it comes to that. He’s so defensive about his father, about their relationship and at first Kathryn had been a little confused by it but now that she’s out of the warm light of Owen’s affection, she can see how with him, you’re either in or you’re out. Tom thinks he’s out and maybe he’s right. 

“He has no choice but to do well or lose his commission,” Owen says. 

“Oh, I don’t think it’s that,” Kathryn says. “He takes pride in the work. Commander Prisu is very pleased with his lab work. I think he’s got a great attitude.”

Owen wipes his mouth. “This is wonderful, Gretchen,” he says. 

Kathryn and her mother exchange a long glance. 

Owen doesn’t dawdle after dinner. 

“Better get home to Julia,” he says. 

“And Tom,” Gretchen adds.

“Uh, yes,” he says.

“Careful in the dark, sir,” Kathryn says. “Paths can be real slippery this time of year.” She doesn’t offer to escort him back to the station. She thinks he might like to get her alone, but he won’t have anything new to say. It’s dark and late. She wasn’t going to spend the night, but she’ll do it to avoid walking with him.

“Oh and Owen,” Gretchen calls. He stops, looks over his shoulder. “You don’t need to do the Janeways any special favors. Life and death, that’s what I care about when it comes to Edward. You can keep your inbetween.” 

She doesn’t wait for a response before she shuts the door.

“Jerk,” she mutters.

“Mom,” Kathryn says. “At least… at least he could be home soon?”

“Or he couldn’t,” Gretchen says. “I know the same amount that I knew this morning. Which is to say, nothing.”

Kathryn cleans up the kitchen. Packs up the leftovers into stasis, cleans the dishes and then returns them to their spots in the various cupboards and drawers. Most kitchens have slots that slide open to reveal storage with the press of a button but these cupboard doors still swing out on a hinge. 

“Your mother likes things analog,” her father used to say when Kathryn would complain about the outdated home growing up. 

When she’s done with the kitchen, she looks for her mother in the living room but finds her chair empty. She climbs the stairs, goes all the way down the hallway to her parent’s bedroom. Her mother is sitting on the edge of the bed, half undressed. It is late here, she’d held dinner off because she’d known Kathryn was coming from the west coast. 

“You okay?” Kathryn asks.

Her mother nods. “Just tired.”

“Can I get you anything before you go to sleep?” she offers. 

“Do you really like working with Owen’s son or were you just saying so to spite him?” Gretchen asks. 

“I thought I wouldn’t,” Kathryn admits. “But I do. He’s very nice. Smart. Not as full of himself as some other members of his family.”

“How old is he now?” she asks. “I just remember him as a child.”

“Oh, twenty-two, I think?” she says.

“Not too young,” her mother says.

“Too young for what?” 

“For you,” her mother says. 

“Mother,” Kathryn says. “He’s in my direct chain of command!”

“Not for forever,” Gretchen says. “And think of how it would annoy Owen.”

Kathryn rolls her eyes. "Goodnight, mother." 

Gretchen just smiles serenely. "Good night, kitten."


	2. but the moment passed, the hatch is closed

_Stuck in the past_  
_Like drawing rings around Saturn_  
_The shadow is cast_  
_But now it follows a pattern_

**Stuck in the Past \- Aimee Mann**

*

“Good morning, Commander Janeway,” Dayo greets when she enters the office Monday morning. 

“Cadet,” she greets in return. She’s still not used to the additional staff, not used to Tom’s desk being occupied by someone else. Tom is nowhere to be found which means he must be in the lab. She leaves her things in her office, finds that he has brought her a silver mug of coffee. She’s stopped fighting that as well. It _is_ good coffee. She brings it with her when she leaves her office again.

She moves past the outer office toward the back of the facility where the lab is. If she stays for the three year tour of this posting, she’ll have to take on a lab project. When she’d chosen the academy, that had been part of the draw. A state of the art lab, time to tinker. But now, that sounds exhausting somehow. Trying to juggle classes and grading and scheduling and all of it. 

She likely won’t extend and she already knows that. If she liked this job more, if she found it more challenging than monotonous, juggling those things wouldn’t be a problem. She’s always been a good multi-tasker. But while she’s grateful for this interlude to find her bearings, she knows ultimately she wants to get back in space. And isn’t that a sign that she’s improving, her mind is healing? She thinks it is, nightmares aside. She’d heard that Captain Picard still occasionally suffered from nightmares regarding the Borg, so it was probably just a permanent part of having a traumatic experience. 

Tom is in the lab, through Prisu isn’t in yet. She tends to start later and stay later since she’s not working around a heavy class schedule. Tom is sitting on one of the stools, staring at a holoimage of a shuttle and next to that is a screen full of scrolling equations. He keeps moving through them, flicking them up and then down again, squinting.

And then, he says, “Ha, there you are you little fucker,” and jabs into the air, opening one of the lines for editing. He leans over the panel and adds in a single bracket. Suddenly the aft section of the shuttle’s shields stops blinking red. 

“And here I was, thinking you were a perfect gentleman,” Kathryn says, trying to look stern and not smile. 

Tom whips around, nearly upsets himself from the stool. 

“Commander, I - I didn’t hear you come in,” Tom says. “Sorry, I was just-”

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’m teasing.” She can see now that he’s looking at her that he looks tired. “How long have you been here?”

“I got in at 0400,” he says. “I just had a thought about our shield matrix and I wanted to work on it before I lost the thread, but the changes caused problems and I’ve had to make some tiny repairs to the code. I don’t want Commander Prisu to come in and see a pile of knocked over dominoes.”

“0400 and you still got me coffee?” she asks.

“I took a break when they opened at 0600,” he says. “I was going anyway.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Why don’t you show me what you guys have been doing back here?”

“Really?” he asks. 

“You haven’t even told me about your trip to the yards,” she says. “Did you guys have fun?”

“Oh yeah, Commander Prisu is all about fun,” he says. “A real wild child.”

Kathryn chuckles, pulls the other stool to where he’s sitting and looks over the screen. 

“You know what I meant,” she says. 

“It was good,” he says. “We learned a lot about the models coming off the line. We’re still really in the theory stage, but a two-hander shuttle is the right size to try it with. If it’s successful, Commander Prisu hopes they’ll let us try the mods on something like a Miranda-class. Something small with a high loss percentage.” 

“That’s wonderful,” she says, with a real smile. “I’m always thrilled to see someone’s idea turn into something practical. That’s my favorite part of being a scientist.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Also spaceships are cool.”

She snorts. Clears her throat, sips her coffee and then says, aiming for a casual tone, “I saw your father.”

He looks up at her, his face awash in blue light. This close she can see maybe a day’s worth of stubble. He’s so fair that he can get away with skipping a shave, but she knows if she touched his jaw, she’d feel the drag of it on her skin. 

“Well, that explains some things,” Tom says.

“Does it?”

“He came home late, wouldn’t talk about why, was in just… the worst mood. Yelled at my mother, snapped at me,” Tom says. “There’s something about you in particular that really gets him between the ribs.” 

Kathryn shifts on the stool. “It wasn’t me so much as my mother, this time,” she says. “She doesn’t care for brass level officers.”

Tom looks like he’s going to say something else but then stops himself. Maybe it’s just as well because Jetic breezes in, bids them all a good morning and the cozy bubble of the dark blue lab bursts. 

Tom seems to know because he doesn’t walk her through the minutiae of their data after all and when she excuses herself, he seems to understand.

She has an office day ahead of her, no classes and that’s good and bad. She tends to hyperfocus on getting the administrative side of her job done and lose track of time. It’s well past her normal lunch time when the chime on her door goes off.

“Enter,” she says.

It’s Tom. He still looks wiped out and she feels a pang of sympathy because she knows what it’s like to be tired all the time. Intimately well. 

“I’m going to get a pizza,” he says. “You want to come?”

“Why don’t you go home?” she asks. “You look like you could use the personal time.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “Home’s no better than here, really.”

“If you’re sure,” she says.

“Do you not like pizza?” he asks. 

“Of course I like pizza,” she says. “I’m offended by the question.” 

Outside in the sun, she uses her hand to shield her eyes and squints across the sidewalks and trees, half evergreens, half barren branches. It’s chilled considerably in the last couple weeks as they’ve transitioned from fall toward winter. It’s not cold here, but they’re close enough to the water that the damp and fog seem to settle around a person. She has on a light jacket, he finds the uniform warm enough.

“How far are you willing to travel for a good slice of pie?” he asks. 

“You want to take the transit system?” she asks.

“I was thinking transporter,” he says. 

She lifts her eyebrows in surprise. They haven’t traveled that far yet. Cadets get an allotted number of transports for the semester and it’s not large, so most of the students stay local for the most part. For officers, recreational transporting is certainly allowed, but is not done with any frequency. 

The only place Kathryn transports to these days is Indiana. 

Tom must transport daily, she reckons. The tram will go all the way down the coastline but it sticks to major hubs and she’s been to the Paris household, albeit briefly, and she’d had to transport to get there. 

“It’s okay,” he says, holding up a hand. “There’s plenty of places in the city.”

“I didn’t say no,” she says. “I was just… thinking it through. How about I go with you to wherever you want to go, but then after, you go home and get some rest.” 

“You drive a hard bargain, Commander,” he says. “But I’d say we have a deal.”

It’s both much later and much colder when they rematerialize on the transporter pad. 

“It’s close!” he promises as they hustle down a New York City street. “Just around the corner!”

And it is close. Less than two blocks from the station, but by the time they step into the pizzeria, her finger tips are bright red with cold and her California jacket seems laughable. It’s flurrying snow and she sees, just for a moment, a few flakes in her hair around her shoulders before it melts away with the heat of the restaurant. 

It’s 1500 hours in New York, so the place is mostly empty and they are the only Starfleet officers in the place. Someone waves at them and tells them to sit wherever, so Tom leads them to a small table near the window so they can watch the people out the window, bent against the cold wind. On the table between them burns a small plasma candle, casting their hands in a green glow. 

“Why this place?” she asks.

“My sister used to work in that building there,” he says, pointing to a tall structure across the street. Kathryn twists to follow his finger. “We’d come here, sometimes, when I used to visit her.”

“I’ll trust you to order for us,” she says. “I’ll defer to your superior knowledge on the topic of pizza.”

“There’s this spectacular place in northern Italy, but even I thought that might be a stretch for a work day lunch.”

“A bit,” she chuckles. She clears her throat, decides now is as good as time as any to bring up something that’s been plaguing her. “So, you’re about eight weeks out.”

“Out from what?” he asks.

“The end of your probation,” she says. “Your ban from flying. You’ll just be a normal ensign.”

“I guess you’re right,” he says. “The end of the semester is coming up.”

“I have to submit my final exam to Commander Desaunti by the end of the week,” she says. “The cadets are already cramming for a test I haven’t even finished writing.” 

“I had a professor once that said there should never be a surprise on an exam if it was set by a competent professor who has done their job well,” Tom says. “Lieutenant Commander Tuvok.”

She grins. “Yes, I know him a little. That sounds like something he’d say. We’re on a committee together.” 

“I hear he turned down a promotion for first officer on a starship to stay at the academy,” Tom says. Kathryn hadn’t heard that herself, but she finds a little bit of comfort in hearing it. It’s a thing people do. She’s not alone. 

“I only bring it up,” she says, trying to steer them back on track. “Because-”

But they’re interrupted, here, by a Bolian in a white apron who takes their order on a PADD and then disappears again. Tom had ordered a garden pizza but had added bacon across the whole thing, glancing at her to see if she objected to the meat. She hadn’t. 

“You were saying?” he asks.

“Once your probation is over, you could take a different assignment,” she says. 

“The posting in your office was for the academic year,” he says.

“Yes,” she says. “However, Commander Desaunti and I understand that these were unusual circumstances.”

He scratches the back of his head. “I hear you,” he says. “But don’t you think it’d look better, in the long run, to see it through? To not leave in the middle of a posting?”

She does. “You don’t mind staying?” she asks, leaning in a little. 

He leans in a little too, she can see the plasma light in his eyes, turning them lucite green. 

“I don’t mind at all,” he says.

The pizza is good. Warm and hearty, creamy mozzarella, fresh vegetables, sweet sauce. They eat nearly the whole thing and then hurry back to the transporter station in a real snowfall, much more than flurries. 

They part at the transporter station. They enter different coordinates - he goes back to Portola Valley, as promised, she to the Academy. When she steps back out into the San Francisco air, she feels not chilly at all anymore. She feels warm and full and happy for the first time in a long time. 

oooo

Tom’s father wakes him up in the middle of the night. It’s so late that it’s early, 0215 on Saturday morning. He’d tucked himself in early to bed, intent on sleeping at least ten hours, more if both his body and his family allowed it. 

But his father turning on his light and patting his foot at the end of the bed has soured that dream.

“Get up,” he says. “Get dressed.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, rubbing his eyes less from sleep and more to block the sudden light. He wants to ask what the hell his father’s problem is, actually, but he’s just trying to ride out these last few weeks without any more fighting. He’ll stay in the posting for a full year, but he sure as hell doesn’t have to live in his father’s house for one day longer than his probation dictates. 

“We’re going to headquarters,” he says. “I have a mission for you.”

This is so wildly out of the ordinary and that Tom’s Starfleet brain kicks in and he follows the order wordlessly as any good soldier ought to. He dresses, cleans his teeth, figures that middle of the night operations come with some amount of bedhead. 

It’s a half mile walk to the transporter station and his father will tell him nothing which is extremely annoying. 

“You’ll be briefed when we get there,” is his only gruff reply. He thinks his father looks tired too, and more than that, he looks old and round about his middle. Tom tries to keep his frustrations to himself, though it’s hard to do trudging through the dark streets for reasons unknown. There’s no attendant at this hour, but his father can easily override that. 

They materialize at headquarters, on the other side of the bridge from the Academy. It’s a short walk to his father’s office; with the promotion came a new larger office on a higher floor. It seems he hasn’t summoned his personal aide for this rendez-vous, but when they enter the outer office, Tom is surprised to see two other admirals, Commander Desaunti, Lieutenant Commander Prisu, and Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway.

His first gut reaction is that he fucked up again somehow and they’ve dragged him out of bed to read him the riot act, but rationality takes over. They’d do that during the day, formally. That’s how it happened last time and last time he’d known about the fuck up ahead of time. 

Janeway looks exhausted, too. Her hair is down in a low bun at the base of her neck, far less elaborate than he’s used to and she doesn’t have any makeup on. She looks younger, she’s got freckles across the bridge of her nose. 

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Owen says. They bypass his office, instead sitting around a large conference table in another room. He introduces the other two admirals, one a human woman, another a Vulcan male and Tom doesn’t know either of them, not even in passing. 

“We’re the task team coordinating the rescue of the _USS Melona_ ,” Owen says. “The _Melona_ embarked on a mission of peace sixteen months ago to open diplomatic talks with an telepathic race at the edge of the quadrant known as the Neshaki’i. Their location and the resources of their planet was of strategic importance to the Federation.”

Tom glances at Janeway and she meets his gaze briefly and knowingly before returning it to Owen. 

“The crew of the _Melona_ missed several check-ins, so a party was sent to investigate and stage a rescue if necessary,” Owen says. “But they’ve reported back and it seems the operation has hit a snag. They've towed back the _Melona_ without her crew.”

Admiral Shahzad speaks up now. “The Neshaki’i are a telepathic race with somewhat isolationist tendencies. They are capable of space travel but do not put much stock into exploration. They have no interest in joining the Federation, but the crew of the _Melona_ were looking to secure a trade agreement and friendly passage through their space.”

Tom is still trying to figure out why he’s here. 

Commander Desaunti speaks up. “What went wrong?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” Owen admits. “Somewhere along the lines, the negotiations broke down. When the rescue team arrived, the _Melona_ was in orbit around the planet but unmanned. The crew was all accounted for on the Neshaki’i homeworld, but Captain Ouyang could only speak to one crew member and the communications were problematic.”

Admiral K’Lar steeples his fingers and says, “The Neshaki’i claim that the crew of the _Melona_ do not wish to return to their ship. They say that the peace and passage treaty is secure only as long as the crew remains on the planet. They say it is a fair trade for what we are asking for in resources as well as movement through their space.”

“You think… that the Neshaki’i are holding the crew to… mine their mind for information about the Federation?” Janeway asks. It’s a jump that Tom hadn’t yet made himself, but Owen turns to her, looks proud.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s exactly what we think. We think the crew of the _Melona_ are being manipulated and ultimately held against their will. We need an extraction crew that can break through whatever hold the Neshaki’i have. We need someone with a deeper connection than Starfleet alone.”

Tom gets it now. He understands why Janeway is here, but is still confused about Commander Prisu and himself. 

“The ranking officer of the _Melona_ is Admiral Janeway,” Tom says. He doesn't bother to phrase it as a question. 

“Yes, Ensign,” Admiral Shahzad says. 

Janeway looks briefly surprised. Just a flash across her face, her eyelashes flutter for a moment. 

“The other obstacle is the location of the planet. The radiation from their star makes it difficult for us to complete transport within safety parameters,” Shahzad continues. “But, with the Commander Prisu’s new enhanced shielding, we may be able to get better sensor readings. We would like to adapt a Miranda-class vessel as well as two shuttles with the new shielding modifications. It’s a twenty-eight hour journey to the Neshaki’i homeworld. The _USS Pankhurst_ is already in orbit with a crew of eight to assist you in your rescue operation and making the modifications while you travel.” 

“The _Pankhurst_ is Commanded by Captain Eriksson, but Lieutenant Commander Prisu will be the ranking member of the extraction team,” Admiral K’Lar says, nodding to Prisu. “You will all transport up now and we will finish the briefing as your journey beings.”

It’s all happening so fast. It’s the middle of the night, Tom is tired and he has informational whiplash. He wants everyone to slow down for a minute, but he’s in no position to ask for that. This is what Starfleet is - following orders. 

Admiral Shahzad taps her comm badge. “Shahzad to _Pankhurst_. Three to beam up.”

oooo

They’re allowed to get a few hours of sleep after the briefing is over, but Kathryn doesn’t sleep and isn’t sure she could. Instead, she spends the time pouring over all the information they have on Neshaki’i. Most of it is about the planet itself, there’s so little about them culturally. 

She feels a surge of frustration toward Starfleet which is unusual for her. She’s very much in line with the ideals of scientific discovery and exploration, but in this instance, it seems like her father and his crew rushed into the situation without doing enough research. There’s something about this planet and its people that Starfleet really wants, but whatever it is has been redacted from the file she’s reading. She knows that things with the Cardassians have been deteriorating quickly, she knows that the Borg are a threat on everyone’s radar. 

She has concerns about what it is she’s supposed to do! Just waltz onto their planet and ask her father to come back with her? According to the admirals in their briefing, the Neshaki’i government had told Starfleet that the crew of the _Melona_ was free to leave whenever they wished. That it had Edward Janeway who’d suggested that he and his crew stay behind, had written it into their treaty to show how serious they were about the partnership. 

She knows her father and that’s not a reasonable suggestion he’d make, so either the Neshaki’i had something so valuable that he was willing to implode his entire life over it, or there was some level of mind control taking place. And if there was, what’s to say that she won’t succumb to it as well? 

She rubs her face, looks over at the narrow bed of the small quarters, but writes it off immediately. She’s too anxious to even lie down and try to rest her body. Best to keep moving. 

Her door chimes.

“Enter,” she says.

It’s Tom Paris, and she’s not surprised for some reason, even though he and Prisu have their own insurmountable task. Their shielding which is still very much a theory at best has to be integrated into the systems of the _Pankhurst_ and her two brand new shuttles by the time they arrive at the Neshaki’i homeworld.

“Hi,” he says. He’s holding a medkit.

“What’s that,” she says, pointing at it.

“Oh this?” he says, holding it up. “This is a medkit.”

“Ensign-”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Two things. Energy booster if you want it. I know I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Sure,” she says. “Maybe when we get a little closer.”

“The other is a suppressant from Starfleet Medical,” he says. “Just came through. Apparently it’s supposed to make it a lot harder for the Neshaki’i to access our thoughts.”

She perks up at this. “They didn’t say anything about that in the briefing!”

“Well it wasn’t done, I guess,” he says. “Maybe they didn’t want to get our hopes up.”

“Gotta be better than nothing,” she says. 

He sets the case down on her desk. 

“Anyway,” he says. “I have to get back to engineering. Prisu and the engineer are not really getting along.”

“Do you guys need some help?” she asks. “I’m going crazy sitting in here.” 

“Of course, Commander, the more the merrier,” he says.

She gestures to the medkit. “Will you be administering those for me?” she asks. She’s teasing. She can press a hypospray into her own neck.

“I did minor in field medicine,” he reminds her. 

“Oh, so it’s Doctor Paris,” she says as they exit the room.

“Let’s hope Doc Paris doesn’t have to make an appearance on this mission,” he says. 

“The research says they’re non-violent,” she says hesitantly. “I just wonder if it’s a different kind of violence.” 

“It seems like a real mess,” he agrees pausing at the junction of the corridor to consult the map. After a moment, he makes a right turn. Miranda class ships are older, primarily scientific research vessels. They’re like if a Constitution class vessel got compacted down into its densest form. Prisu had, not three weeks ago, submitted her proposal to Starfleet Command about fitting a Miranda-class vessel with the new shielding, primarily because they still operated with a single hull. Their shuttle tests had gone well, proposing a test on a larger vessel had been the next logical step. 

And now, here they are on the _Pankhurst_ , hurtling toward the unknown. Not a coincidence, surely. 

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to… what if we get down there and he doesn’t respond to me?” she asks, softly. 

Tom slows, leans against the bulkhead. She regrets saying anything. She shouldn’t be vulnerable in front of him. He’s her subordinate, she needs to be strong. She’d never even say anything like that to Jetic or Prisu, but she’s come to realize that despite her best efforts at self-sabotage and isolation, the closest thing to a friend she has is Tom Paris and he’s the only one she’s got. 

“Clearly, the brass doesn’t have any better ideas,” Tom says. “They’re asking you because they need all the help they can get. No one expects a miracle, Commander.”

“I need a miracle,” she says. “That’s my father out there.”

“I have every faith in you. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, my dad was at least right about that.” He frowns. “Is this the first time you’ve been in space since you disembarked from the _Al-Batani_?”

She feels her hackles go up. “Medical cleared me for duty,” she says. 

“Yeah, but,” he says. “Anxiety would be a normal response to a trauma.”

“I wasn’t… it wasn’t a trauma. It was just… a narrow escape, that’s all,” she says. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he says, “But we can if you ever want to.”

“Thank you, Doc Paris,” she says, trying to find the levity once more. “I will… keep that in mind.”

oooo

It takes closer to forty hours to arrive at the Neshaki’i homeworld because they have to stop twice to work on the shielding. Tom makes the modifications to the shuttles successfully, but it’s more complex to do so on a starship, let alone one hurtling through space. Prisu insists on dropping to impulse for both her phases of installation. 

Tom can tell that this frustrates Commander Janeway, but she holds her tongue admirably. She understands that it will be in everyone’s best interest to have every advantage they can scrounge. 

She proves herself helpful in engineering, mostly because she helps Prisu and the engineer, Lieutenant Barsolow, communicate more effectively. Barsolow has a quick temper and likes to do things quickly; Prisu is methodical and seemingly in no hurry. 

Still, during the second stop, scheduled to last four hours, Tom suggests they retire once more to their respective quarters and try to sleep. Janeway agrees this time, citing sore knees from crawling through Jeffries tubes.

“Even if I don’t sleep, the rest will help,” she says, mostly to herself, he thinks. 

“I can give you something to help you,” Tom offers. “Knock you out for a few hours.”

Janeway looks up at him, purple circles underneath her gray eyes. He considered them bluer on Earth, but here, surrounded by bulkhead and industrial carpeting, they’ve definitely gone fully gray. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s an option,” he says. 

“My counselor, the one who cleared me for duty, I mean, warned that those could be very addictive,” she frets.

“They can be,” he agrees. “If you have some sort of psychological issue that you aren’t working through, if you use them as a crutch, sure. That’s a spiral waiting to happen. But I think one time use, in circumstances like these, can be beneficial.”

“I don’t want to be groggy for the mission,” she says.

“I’ll give you something gentle. Very mild. And we have the stimulant to perk you back up later if you need it,” he promises. 

She’s nodding. “Then yes, I think I’ll take you up on the offer.” 

He’s surprised, but pleasantly. She’s always a little tired, he’s noticed, always leaning hard on her coffee to get her though. He has wondered, and not for the first time, if she’s been sleeping much. His father sure hasn’t, pacing the halls of their home at all hours. He doesn’t know exactly what happened on the _Al-Batani_ , but he knows it shook his father up good, that Kathryn Janeway had spent a not insignificant amount of time in a Cardassian prison, that she’d saved herself and several of her crew mates, and that when she’d gotten home, she’d abruptly broken up with her boyfriend and changed her career track to something incredibly benign for someone with her service record. 

There’s some trauma there, surely. She’s functional enough to be cleared by Starfleet Medical, but she’s jittery on this ship and it’s making him very nervous about what lies ahead. 

His quarters are across the hall from hers, but he follows her into hers and goes the replicator. Requests the mild sedative. The computer asks him for an access code and he panics for a second, thinking that he’d promised her something that he can’t deliver on, but when he says, “Medical clearance Paris Gamma 4718,” the computer beeps happily and produces his request inside of the replicator. 

“Lie down,” he instructs, pointing to the narrow bed. 

She gives him a look he can’t quite decipher, but kicks her boots off and lies back on the bed, a little awkward and stiff. Her hair is still in that low bun, so when he crouches by her head, all she has to do is look to the bulkhead to expose her neck. 

He presses the hypospray into her freckled skin and it hisses as the medicine is deposited. 

“Sweet dreams, Commander,” he says softly. 

Her eyes flutter closed.

He lets himself out of her quarters and goes into his own. Sits on his cot and runs his hands through his hair. If she were any other woman, he’d have half killed himself trying to flirt his way into her bed, but he obviously can’t do that here. And she’s better than that, frankly. She deserves more. Kathryn Janeway isn’t the kind of woman you sleep with one time, she’s the kind of woman you try to spend your whole life with. 

Maybe his father _had_ fallen for her, a little bit. Perhaps not in a lecherous way, but Tom feels tugged into her orbit and it’s getting hard to resist. He just wants to be around her, even if she’s his boss and they can’t act on anything. 

It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s been nothing but professional with him. Maybe if she felt the same way, she would have seemed more disappointed that he’d elected to finish out the whole of the duty assignment instead of cutting and running at the halfway mark. Out of her direct chain of command, maybe something could change between them. Maybe Andorian swamp swine could fly. 

He’d just figured, if she’s here for the year, he’ll be too. And then, well. He’ll have to learn to live without her.

“ _Prisu to Ensgin Paris._ ”

He sighs. So much for sleeping. He taps his badge. “Paris here.”

“ _Your assistance is required on the Bridge_.” 

“On my way.” 

At least one of them is getting some shut eye.

oooo

As far as Kathryn can tell, though the shuttles took to the shielding just fine, the improvements on the _Pankhurst_ herself are a little patchy. Every time they get the aft section up and running, the starboard side drops to thirty-eight percent efficiency. If they divert power to starboard, the aft flickers out again. 

Even Prisu is starting to show signs of wear, a deep line forming between her eyebrows, a green hue high on her cheeks. 

“Usually I do not implement my own designs. I simply forward them to the Engineering Corps,” she says, the closest she ever came to an outright complaint.

“You’re the brains, not the brawn,” Paris says.

“So to speak, Ensign,” she agrees. 

Barsolow isn’t really a bad engineer, but science research vessels tend to stick close to home and rarely need to implement fast and loose changes in a time crunch, so he’s not really used to this kind of pressure. The only one who seems not to lose their calm exterior is Captain Eriksson, standing out in his command red when he strolls in.

Kathryn can’t really imagine making Captain and then aspiring to captain what amounted to, really, a floating lab. But maybe she can, now that she sees him. He seems like the kind of man who likes his low stress job. 

“How’s it going, gang?” he asks, lines forming at the corners of his eyes when he smiles. “Hear we’re having some trouble with the shields?”

“We’re working out some kinks,” Barsolow says through clenched teeth. “I’m really not sure that this concept was ready for practical use.”

“Ready or not,” Tom mutters under his breath. Only she can hear him. She thinks. 

Prisu gives Barsolow a long sideways gaze through narrow eyes. 

“Well Starfleet is pretty keen on us getting back on the road,” Eriksson says, crossing his arms and leaning against a dark console. “I think we’re gonna, uh, have to make it work.” 

“We’ll just have to protect the aft,” Kathryn says. “As much as possible.”

“A little fancy flying!” Eriksson says with a clap. “That sounds fun!”

“We can keep the _Pankhurst_ out of range of the radiation as much as possible, try to scout it out with the shuttles,” Tom says. “They’re good to go.” 

“See,” Eriksson says, looking at Barsolow but pointing to Tom. “A little positivity, some creative thinking…”

Barsolow works hard to keep a neutral face. “Yes, sir.” 

“Anyway,” Eriksson says. “We gotta get moving, so… Commander Janeway, why don’t you come to the bridge with me.”

“Of course, sir,” she says. She makes the mistake of glancing at Tom who is clearly trying not to smirk. She just manages to jab him with her elbow when Eriksson turns away. 

Tom coughs to cover the laugh she jostles out of him. 

Eriksson leans against the wall of the turbolift too, looking supremely unconcerned. “I thought I might send you down with my first officer,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe a third. You want a third?”

“We don’t want to seem aggressive,” Kathryn says. “Or risk exposing more people than necessary to whatever is affecting the crew of the _Melona_.”

“Two teams then,” Eriksson says. “Just in case. Two shuttles, after all.” 

The lift stops, opens to the bridge. Eriksson strolls out. The first officer is a tall, lean man with dark eyes who looks as serious as Eriksson looks whimsical. 

“Commander Ben Miller, this is Commander Kathryn Janeway,” Eriksson says. They nod at one another. “I’d like for you two to work together to see what’s going on down there. Get those people out.”

“Yes, sir,” Miller says. 

“I’ll watch the bridge,” Eriksson says. “You two go scheme up something good.” 

Miller has a small office a deck below the bridge, so they retreat there. 

“How long have you been aboard the _Pankhurst_?” she asks, as they settle on opposite sides of Miller’s desk. 

“Seven long months,” he says. 

She smiles.

“It is an excellent assignment,” he says, backtracking immediately. 

“Captain Eriksson is a character,” she agrees. 

“Commander, it’s my understanding that we’re here to rescue your father?” Miller says.

“Yes, and six of his crew members. They were on a diplomatic mission, officially, but I haven’t seen him in over a year.” 

“Why such a long wait for a rescue mission?” Miller wonders.

“One was attempted, failed,” Kathryn says. “I think whatever the Neshaki’i have, Starfleet must really want.”

“I see,” Miller says. “And now they’re ready to cut their losses?”

“Starfleet has come to the conclusion that allowing Starfleet officers to stay on the Neshaki’i homeworld constitutes an intelligence risk greater than whatever they’ll lose with the treaty,” Kathryn says. “I’m not sure I have all the information, frankly.”

“We never do,” Miller says. “However, it looks like with Commander Prisu’s shielding, we might be able to get a shuttle through the atmosphere unnoticed. If we can get onto the planet near where the crew of the _Melona_ is undetected, we might be able to get you close enough to your father to make a difference.”

“We can’t transport through the atmosphere to the ship, but we could site-to-site using the shuttle,” Janeway says. “I think that will have to be our best bet.” 

“Agreed,” he says.

She hesitates for a moment, unsure of how vulnerable she really wants to appear in front of Miller, but finally decides that if they’re going to be working together, he ought to have as much information as possible. 

“I teach at the academy,” she says. “There’s no reason for me to be on this assignment other than being his daughter.”

“Right person for the right job,” Miller says. “No shame in that game.”

“I haven’t seen him in some time, I just don’t… have any expectations of how it may go,” she says. “That’s all.”

“Let’s try to even the playing field,” Miller says. He activates his console, pulls up the scans from the previous rescue attempts. “Let’s learn everything we can.”

She nods.

oooo

Tom is in the shuttle bay for the launch. He feels anxious about the whole thing. Something Prisu had said while they were finalizing their installation had planted a seed of worry. He’d been speculating about the Neshaki’i homeworld, the strange radiation, what resource must have evolved on a planet with those specific circumstances and what made Starfleet want it so badly.

“You have no evidence that it is a natural resource,” she’d chided. Prisu didn’t care for assumptions or idle speculation. 

He realizes that she’s right. He’d assumed it was the planet that tempted Starfleet but it was extremely rare for a resource to be found only one place in the whole of the universe. No, generally with this amount of secrecy, it turned out that the thing everyone wanted was more likely a piece of technology. 

Like a weapon.

So watching Janeway board the shuttle in her Neshaki’i clothing, her system filled with the neural suppressant, gives him butterflies in his stomach. Janeway and Miller don’t look Neshaki’i, but the clothes will help them blend in from a distance. Starfleet uniforms are a beacon they don’t need.

They have a general sense of where the _Melona_ crew is and once they get through the atmosphere, they’ll be able to get better sensor readings. With any luck this could go clean and easy. They could be back in a couple hours, this standard shuttle filled with rescued people like a can of sardines. 

While the shuttle is doing pre-flight checks, Captain Eriksson comes up and says, “Ensign Paris!”

“Captain,” he greets.

“I think maybe you should go on the second shuttle,” Eriksson says, rocking back on his heels for a moment. 

“Me, sir?” Tom asks. 

“Along with Lieutenants Vishira and Rivera,” he says. “I just think someone who knows about this shielding should maybe be on hand.”

“Commander Prisu would be the expert,” Tom offers.

“Yeah,” he says, looking over at her. “She doesn’t really scream ‘away mission’ to me.” He claps Tom on the shoulder. “Plus Janeway seems to trust you. She might get rattled. Families are tough.”

Tom wants to defend Janeway’s competency, to tell Eriksson to stuff it, but he holds his tongue. “I’d be happy to go, sir.” 

“Good man,” Eriksson says. He touches his nose and points at Tom. “Not to fly though!”

“Of course not, sir,” Tom says. He waits until Eriksson walks away before muttering, “Prick,” under his breath. The second shuttle team is going to wait an hour and then keep a low orbit, somewhere between the _Pankhurst_ and the surface, ready to be of help if needed. 

He hopes it’s boring. He hopes they just hang out there, unnoticed, until Janeway’s shuttle flies past them. But still, that seed of worry is sprouting. 

For awhile it’s fine. They leave sixty minutes after the first shuttle which has gone undetected - Prisu seems pleased. Once this is all over, he knows she will devote herself entirely to correcting whatever error is causing the shielding to be inconsistent on a larger vessel. He’d think about it while sitting on the uncomfortable back bench of this shuttle, except he’s too worried to sort through shielding schematics in his brain. 

“Take a nap, Paris,” Lieutenant Rivera says. “You look tired.”

“I’m good, sir,” he says. 

“This is better than deep space telemetry scans,” Lieutenant Vishira says in her lilting accent. She’s got a head full of thick, dark hair and heavy lashes, is so beautiful that it ought to be distracting. But Tom can’t even admire her from afar right now. “Some action!”

“You call this action?” Lieutenant Rivera says. “Sitting and waiting in a shuttle while some other team gets the glory?”

Maybe it just doesn’t feel real to them, Paris can understand that intellectually. They don’t know Kathryn Janeway, they have nothing invested in this planet, the crew they’re saving. This is just a mission. Deviation from the norm. But it’s difficult to not want to snap something hot headed at them. He has to work to stay silent. 

“When is their first check in scheduled for?” Tom asks, even though he knows it’s at the two hour mark, which they’re quickly approaching. 

“Thirty-five minutes,” Rivera says. “Hey, Sarika, is this neural suppressant making you feel weird?”

“No, why?” Lieutenant Vishira asks. 

“I got the worst heartburn,” he says, knocking a fist into his chest.

“Maybe it’s because you eat like a Bolian at a carnival,” she says. 

Tom leans his head back on the bulkhead, his eyes glued to the panel showing the schematic of the shuttle, doing a slow and low orbit around a planet that could notice them at any time. 

oooo

They set the shuttle down two kilometers away from where her father’s scans are showing up. It means they’re going to have to hike in from the hills on foot, but they rig up the transporters before they leave and then navigate using their tricorders. 

It feels strange to be out of uniform. This planet is warm and dry and so the clothing she has on is lightweight and loose - several sheer layers of garments that build up to opacity. Still, her arms are bare and she’d had to cover herself with sun protectant, just in case. She wears beige and green, great for the hike because she and Miller blend into the landscape. 

She tries hard not to think about anything too loud. Who is to say that hypospray full of suppressant is doing anything at all? She’s learned to trust science and Starfleet both, but right now she feels as exposed as a raw nerve. She wishes it was Tom Paris at her side, not the stoic and serious Commander Miller. Tom would crack a joke, at least. Make her feel a little better. 

She thinks about her mother sitting on her bed saying, “ _Not too young_.”

Then she tries to clear her mind, think of nothing but the sky above her, the uneven path below. 

Finally, they make it to the top of the hill and have a clear view of the sprawling white facility in the valley below. 

“Not exactly residential housing,” Miller says quietly.

“No,” she agrees. The tricorder doesn’t give them anything that is a revelation. The facility is so massive that it contains any number of things - laboratories, medical bays, sleeping quarters, dining areas. It could be any Starfleet facility, it could be their Academy. The only thing sinister about it is the fact that Edward Janeway’s life sign is inside of it and he apparently doesn’t want to leave. 

Miller taps at his tricorder and starts to say something and then stops again. 

“What?”

“Well,” he says, squinting in the bright sunlight. “It’s just not very… secure.”

Miller is the tactical half of their little duo. She’s been focusing mostly on gathering environmental readings and pinpointing the different crew members. They all seem to be in one general area. Life signs strong but… stationary. Maybe they’re all sleeping?

“That’s good for us, then,” she says. 

“I guess,” he admits. “Though it just makes me suspicious.” 

“Maybe their telepathy and isolation have made them lax in physical security,” she says. “If you can read someone’s intent as they’re walking up the garden path, you know if they’re coming to rob you before they get to the front door. And the radiation keeps most other ships away.” 

“We’ll be lucky if this is all it is,” he says. “Let’s sit tight until our check-in. Watch a while.”

It’s the right thing to do, though she’s antsy now to get inside. They stay low, eyes on the facility though they don’t see any movement and it’s unsettlingly quiet. No birds, no animals. The only thing she can hear is the wind through the grass and Miller clenching and unclenching his jaw as he watches the tricorder. 

Finally he sighs and taps at his comm badge. “Miller to Shuttle two.”

There’s a bit of a delay and then the response, staticky. “ _Shuttle… two… ahead_.” 

They exchange glances. Miller looks worried already. He’s got one of those faces that just telegraphs his mood plain as day. 

“We’ve located life signs and are going to infiltrate a facility,” he says. “We will attempt next check in two hours from now.” 

More static and then the broken voice of Rivera again. “ _Signal… eak… ceed with cau...vera out._ ” 

The hill down is steep and doesn’t offer much in the way of cover besides some shade, so they stick to the shade as much as possible and go as fast as safety will allow. When they get to the bottom, the hem of her long tunic is filled with burrs because the fabric is so thin and flimsy. Miller uses hand motions to guide them around the perimeter until they come across a gate in the fence. 

This is the first time they see someone, a pair actually, walking across a distant courtyard on the other side of the fence. There’s something serene about the way the Neshaki’i look. The two that they see are tall and willowy and the fine fabric makes sense as it flows out behind them, in sync with their graceful movements. 

Kathryn realizes immediately, however, that if they’re spotted, there will be no blending in. The Neshaki’i that she can see have fair, almost grayish skin. Kathryn has never felt so squat and pink in her life. And she can’t tell if what they have is hair or some other cranial or protein formation, but whatever it is is dark and close to their scalp. Kathryn’s own reddish brown hair is held back by an elastic but moving in the breeze. 

They wait for the pair to pass out of sight and then Miller says, “The tricorder could probably break the code but I don’t want to set off any alarms. I think we should hop it. There’s no force field or energy signature, apart from the access panel.” 

Kathryn nods. It’s about two meters high. Miller gives her a boost so she can reach the top. She just barely manages to use her upper body strength to pull herself up enough to leverage her body over. Her arms start to tremble as she lowers herself down to hanging and then she drops. Certainly not graceful. Maybe all that swimming to tire herself out isn’t enough exercise after all. 

Miller, however, can jump high enough to grab the top and then he just hauls himself over with brute strength and lands on the hard ground in a crouch.

“Show off,” she whispers and he grins, the first openly positive expression she’s seen him make. 

They wait a minute to see if they’ve tripped any alarms, warning signals, caught anyone’s notice but the day continues blissfully on, sun shining and breeze gently blowing. 

He taps his tricorder and hers beeps softly. He’s sent her a route to follow along, just in case. She’s nervous about actually going inside. There are Neshaki’i life signs everywhere, but not the ratio she might expect from such a large facility. She’s used to planets as densely populated as Earth, packed with hundreds of different species. From the scans they made on the _Pankhurst_ , it seemed like the Neshaki’i population was just over ten million, which is small for an M-Class planet of this size. But she doesn’t know anything about their procreation practices. Projecting human traits onto an alien species almost never works. 

The lack of people is working in their favor now, however. They enter a building through an unlocked door into a low-lit hallway. They make their way slowly inside, pausing to let people pass before they turn corners. The suppressant must be working because her mind is racing. They’re supposed to take another hit in an hour and a half. Hopefully they won’t need that. 

The first real obstacle they come to is when they reach the section of rooms where the _Melona_ crew’s life signs are. There’s security now, a locked door with a complex looking panel. Miller works on it swiftly and silently, reading the tricorder and finally reaching out and slowly pecking out a series of symbols into the interface. 

It makes a series of three beeps and then goes dark. She can feel herself tense for a shrieking klaxon or incoming footsteps but after nearly five long seconds of nothing, the screen lights up again and the doors slide open.

“Why the ever loving hell…?” Miller hisses.

“Who cares,” she says. “Come on.” They can judge the bad design when this is all over.

They slip through and the doors shut again. It does seem like maybe the door was taunting them. She wonders, briefly, if their landing had not gone unnoticed, if they’re being watched but it does no good to voice those paranoid concerns so she swallows them down. They carry on.

But she can’t help the feeling of dread that crawls up her back as they get closer and closer to the stationary dots that represent life signs. This is definitely a scientific facility of some sort. There’s no way humans volunteer to live in a place like this, there just isn’t any way. Finally they’re a door away. Miller stands aside, lets Kathryn enter first as a show of respect.

The other side is a horror show. 

It’s some sort of medical bay. The crew are all laid out on beds, stripped of their uniforms and in varying degrees of study. She can tell from the monitors above them that they’re all technically still alive, but some of them will not be leaving this room today. 

There’s a man with his chest open, beating heart exposed. There are two women who have long scars along their midsections. One is missing a breast. A male with tubes coming out of every limb. And then, on the last bed, her father. Two are missing entirely. 

_Already dead,_ her brain supplies.

“This is barbaric,” Miller says. “This is torture. Who are these people?”

She rushes over to her father’s side. It almost doesn’t look like him, He’s skin and bones, covered in wounds and scars in varying states of healing, shaved head. He’s hooked up to some sort of machine, but he appears to be in one piece, more or less. She shakes his shoulder, but he doesn’t react at all. His eyes don’t even flicker under his lids, shaded purple like an old bruise. 

“We don’t… we can’t know about the state of them, can we move them?” Kathryn asks, trying to keep her panic at bay. 

“What choice do we have?” Miller asks. He has a sheen of sweat on his top lip, he looks ill. “Two of them have no brain activity.”

“Tom,” Kathryn says. “I mean Ensign Paris. He’s a field medic. He has medical training.”

“We can’t beam him here,” Miller says. “It’s too risky.” 

“No but,” she says, trying to think. “Shuttle to shuttle.”

“Okay,” Miller says. “Okay. I think we can do that. I think…” 

He reaches into a pouch on his belt and pulls out the small transport enhancers. 

“Three have brain activity. But we have to get them off these machines.” 

She works on her father, yanking out tubing and unclipping wires. They both work as fast as possible because immediately, a machine starts to beep alarmingly. Miller sets enhancers on the three living members and taps his tricorder. The first woman starts to shimmer away. Kathryn can hear a distant commotion. The second woman begins to transport but it’s a struggle. The cycle takes too long. Finally, she disappears. Now Kathryn can hear footsteps and voices.

“Commander!” she says. 

“I know,” he snaps. Kathryn pulls her phaser, aims at the door. Owen Paris had made it clear that they should not implode things diplomatically if possible but she can’t worry about that now. Torturing Starfleet officers is not diplomatic. Diplomacy is far behind them. 

Now her father is in his transport cycle. 

The door opens and she has to start shooting, ducking behind a piece of medical equipment on wheels. For as thin and reedy as these people are, they’re surprisingly strong. They withstand several direct hits before finally dropping. 

“He’s there. We have to go!” Miller is yelling now. The shrill alarms on the medical devices are being drowned out by building wide klaxons. 

She shoots the panel at the door and it closes, getting caught on the body of one of the fallen Neshaki’i. 

As she disappears, she can see a weapon through the crack in the door, a flash of light as it fires, but it’s too late. The shuttle materializes around her.

She looks around at the pile of bodies crammed into the back of the small shuttle, at Miller tripping over himself to get to the controls and get the shuttle into the air. She taps her badge, intent on calling for help as she sorts out the people, but instead she feels hot, and then the heat turns mean, like being scalded by boiling water, and she looks down to see blood soaking into the thin, fine fabric covering her midsection. 

She feels woozy. 

“Miller,” she says. 

The shuttle goes sideways and then black. 

oooo

Maybe Lieutenant Vishira is a capable pilot when she’s not panicking, Tom doesn’t know. What he does know is that the crew of the _Pankhurst_ must not see much combat or conflict, because they seem ill-equipped to deal with how quickly everything has gone sour. He hasn’t seen much active combat himself, but when your homelife is active combat, you’re always prepared for things to take a wrong turn. 

Tom had detected Janeway and Miller’s weapon fire through the radiation only because he’d been looking for it, doing intensive and constant scanning honed in on Starfleet phaser signatures. He’d just had a bad feeling, that’s all. They’d broken orbit as soon as Tom had reported weapons, trying to get closer to the first shuttle. 

Miller sounds slightly more composed than his shipmates when he calls for back-up. The connection is still not crystal clear, but they can hear every word now because they’ve made it through the atmosphere, and it seems like they’d recovered some crew but there are medical emergencies.

“ _We need Paris to come over and help_ ,” Miller is saying.

“We can’t transport through the shields, Commander,” Paris says, shouting to be sure he’s heard. “We need to get close enough so that I can extend our shield around your vessel. Then you can drop yours to allow for transport!” 

And that’s where they are now, Tom trying to calculate how he’s going to get these finicky shields to do that while Vishira inexpertly barrels their shuttle to the coordinates of the first shuttle. He’s going to have to talk her through getting the shuttle close enough to the second one while both are in flight without destroying both, too. 

“We’ve got company,” Rivera says. “Two ships launching from fifteen kilmoeters west of the facility.” 

“ _Shuttle two, Commander Janeway has been injured. I need help over here!_ ” Miller says, sounding distressed. 

“How long until those ships get here?” Tom asks.

“Two, two and a half minutes?” Rivera says. 

Tom doesn’t care what his father thinks, but he really hopes Starfleet doesn’t hold this against him. 

“Move,” he says to Vishira.

“Ensign, you’re on a no fly order,” Rivera says.

“I’m the best pilot here and if we want to get through this without all of us dying, you need to move,” he says to Vishira. “I’ll accept whatever consequences come after.” 

She looks up at him, nods with relief. Steps out of the way. 

It is easier to fly and do the math for the shields at the same time. He banks right hard to confuse the incoming ships. The fact that they haven’t already started firing is telling Tom that the shields are still throwing off their sensors. They’ll need visuals to shoot. 

He can see the other shuttle now; they’re racing toward one another.

“Miller, you’re going to have to come up below us and hold steady,” Tom says. “Match our speed and course.” 

“ _Okay_ ,” he says. 

He holds steady enough, anyway. Tom smacks his hand against the panel, praying that his math works. The bubble expands, though efficiency drops a bit. But it holds green.

“Drop your shields and transport me over,” Tom says.

“The Neshaki’i vessel is firing,” Rivera says. “They missed.”

“Yeah, they can’t see us on sensors, they’re eyeballing it,” Tom says. “Let’s hope they’re a terrible shot.”

“ _Paris, the transporter isn’t working. There’s not the physical space to complete the cycle with all the people in here,_ ” Miller says.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tom says. “Okay, we’re gonna have to… line up our hatches.”

“Mid-flight?” Vishira exclaims. “You’ll kill us.” 

“No I won’t,” Tom says. “Miller, transfer pilot control to me.”

“ _Say again?”_ Miller asks.

“I flew shuttles competitively, can you all please trust me here?” Tom says. After a moment, his panel beeps. “Thank you.”

He banks them both, flying parallel spiraling up and then leveling out in the troposphere. It makes for a bumpier ride, but it also will make them harder to hit. Then he lines up the shuttles, top to bottom and brings them together. He nails it on the first time, the computer chirping happily and then the clamps locking into place. Nothing like a little pressure to hone his senses. 

“See?” he says. “Easy as pie.”

“Sarika, take the helm,” Rivera says. 

“Once I’m aboard, you can fly us both up and back to the _Pankhurst_ ,” Tom says, climbing the ladder up to the hatch. 

“Got it,” Rivera says. “Nice flying, Ensign.”

“Hope it was worth it,” he says, keying in his code to open the hatch. As soon as the hatch on the first shuttle opens, an arm falls through and a trickle of blood hits him in the face. He knows that hand. 

Janeway.


	3. doesn't all that running make you dizzy?

_You want somebody to hold you_  
_'Cause when you're drinking you slip up and put your hands on me_  
_Ain't your momma ever told you?_  
_Just because you're out here running doesn't make you free_

**So Long \- Diplo (featuring Cam)**

*

She regains consciousness briefly when something gives her some pain relief. The hiss of a hypospray, a flood into her system that makes the burning recede, lets her open her eyes. She’s got a migraine, she used to get them as a teenager. She’d had to get a special medical release for the replicator to give her medicine for them, she remembers. She hasn’t had one in years. The hypospray moves that pain further away, but does not eliminate it. 

Someone is touching her. 

“Sorry.”

She knows that voice, she knows it’s Tom. 

“Commander, you still with us?” he says. She tries to say his name but she has trouble, her face feels numb. She tries to open her eyes. It’s work, things are blurry. “There you are. Here, hold this here. Don’t move your hand.”

He puts something into her hand and presses her hand against her midsection. 

It burns! The pain flares up again, like fire. She tries to move it away.

“No, no, hold it there. I know, it hurts. We have to stop the bleeding until we get to sickbay.” 

She rolls her head, looks past him. A row of bodies. He’s got her propped up against the bulkhead. 

There’s an impact, she feels it reverberate against the back of her skull through the bulkhead and groans.

“Direct hit,” Millers says. “They’re getting better.”

“They can see us now with the shields so low,” Tom says. “How long?”

“Three minutes,” he says. “The _Pankhurst_ is returning fire, but they’re outgunned.”

“I bet the Neshaki’i can’t see them, though,” Tom says. He looks at Kathryn. “Keep holding it. Promise?”

She tries to nod. But that hurts, so she tries to speak. “Pro...mise,” she manages.

He grins, a quick flash and then she watches him lean over one of the bodies. 

One has an emergency blanket pulled up over their face. She can’t see who. 

“They’re opening the shuttle bay doors,” Miller says. “Should we disengage?”

“We’ll fit like this,” Tom says. “We just need to get in the garage.” 

Kathryn just needs to lie down, that’s all. Her arm feels weak where she’s holding whatever it is that he gave her to her stomach, she’s so tired, her head hurts. She just leans over a little, feels herself slump over.

“Hang on,” Tom says, back in her direct line of vision again. He puts his hand on her face but she can’t feel it. “Hang on, Commander.”

When she wakes up again, she’s in sickbay. Sickbays always feel the same, always the same level of lighting, the same kind of smell, the same beeping in the background. The same scratchy blue gowns. 

She looks around, tries to sit up. 

“Hold it,” someone says. “Not too fast.”

She looks up, a woman she doesn’t know. She wears a starfleet uniform, has pretty green eyes. 

“You’re in sickbay,” she says.

“I can see that,” Kathryn says. 

“I’m Dr. Fournier,” she says. 

“What happened?” She sits up more slowly, under the watchful eye of Dr. Fournier and her tricorder. She’s got a smart blonde bob, a little line between her eyebrows as she reads the screen.

“You got shot,” she says. 

“I thought they missed,” Kathryn says. 

“Nope,” says Dr. Fournier. “Though I think it would have been much worse if you hadn’t already started the transport cycle.”

“And… and the officers we rescued?” she asks. 

“Well, that’s more complicated,” Dr. Fournier says. “Two survived the trip on the shuttle. They’re in stasis, now, until we can get them back to Starfleet medical. This ship is just not equipped to…”

“Who didn’t make it?” Kathryn asks.

“An Ensign Amanda Nieminen,” she says.

“So, my father...” Kathryn says. 

“Oh,” Dr. Fournier says. “I didn’t realize.”

Kathryn lies back again, tired. Drained.

“They were in some sort of induced coma,” Dr. Fournier says. “They weren’t aware of what was happening, in my opinion.” 

“We had to leave two there,” Kathryn says. “No brain activity.”

“I think you should get some rest,” Dr. Fournier says. “From what I understand, your conduct was exemplary.” 

“Can I see him?” Kathryn asks. That line returns to Dr. Fournier’s forehead. 

“Sure,” she says, only after a small hesitation. She offers her arm to help Kathryn get to her feet. She feels okay. Her skin feels a little tight and itchy under her gown, like it’s new. The sickbay isn’t large, but it’s big enough that they have to turn a corner. It’s clear that they’d had to remove a biobed to make space for the two stasis pods. 

Kathryn looks into the first one, sees a woman. The next one has her father. He’s been cleaned up, dressed. Some of the more obvious bruising is gone and the scar tissue, angry and pink, has been mended. But he still has that strange buzz cut, is still so thin.

“I can’t promise you anything about his long term prognosis,” Dr. Fournier says. “But he is alive.” 

“Thank you, Doctor,” she says. “Can I return to my quarters?”

“Another few hours here, I think,” Dr. Fournier says. “And then we’ll see.”

She’s never liked sleeping in a sickbay, but she’s so tired that she falls asleep right away, despite the presence of Dr. Fournier, the noise, the sinking feeling that despite exemplary conduct, she did not do enough.

oooo

“Ensign Paris,” Captain Eriksson says. They’re in his ready room, a tiny broom closet off the bridge. Tom’s had a meal and a shower, thirty minutes of sleep. “I gotta say, uh, that I’m sure Commander Miller appreciates the initiative you showed on that mission. Your quick thinking, field medical skills, and aptitude for flying quickly became… invaluable.”

“Thank you sir,” he says.

“However-”

“Yeah,” Tom says. “I violated my probation.”

“As any officer would have done in your position,” Captain Eriksson says. “I’m entering a note of commendation into your file.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I hope it helps.” 

Eriksson reaches out and shakes his hand.

“Me too, man. Me too.” Eriksson smiles. “Procedure says that I should confine you to quarters for the rest of the trip back to Earth, but just stay off the bridge and out of engineering, okay?”

“Sure,” Tom says. 

When he leaves the bridge, he doesn’t return to his quarters. He goes right to sickbay. Dr. Fournier had reassured him that with minor surgery, Commander Janeway would be fine. That she’d lost some blood, but not too much, that it was a plasma burn and the damage to her organs was not permanent. Still, the moment they’d gotten everyone into sickbay, he’d felt on the edge of panic himself, the whole mission racing to catch up with him. 

Dr. Fournier hadn’t ordered him out at least, had allowed him to help prep Admiral Janeway and Lieutenant Tabaha for stasis. He’d bathed them, healed their minor wounds, helped clothe them. It gave him something to do. 

Now he enters sickbay again to see Janeway asleep on a biobed. He knows she’s alright because she’s not on her back, but has curled onto her side, sleeping with one arm under her head. Her hair is swept over one shoulder and he can see freckles across the nape of her pale neck.

“She’s been asleep for a few hours,” Dr. Fournier says from behind him. “She can return to her quarters when she wakes up.” 

He looks over his shoulder. “She’s okay?”

Dr. Fournier smiles. “She’s fine. A friend of yours?”

“My boss,” he says. “That’s her dad.” He points to the stasis pod.

“So I discovered,” Dr. Fournier says. “A little unorthodox, don’t you think?”

“We had some bad intelligence,” Tom says. “We thought it would be a matter of convincing him to come back with us, not a POW situation.”

“Well it’s certainly the most action this little ship has seen in a while,” she says. “Why don’t you wake her up. Walk her home.” 

He nods. “Thank you.”

He walks around the bed so he can see her face. She’s still got dark circles under her eyes, her lips are chapped, her hair a little greasy and tangled. He knows a little about the mission she’d just gotten off of, before her teaching post. Now she’s here, having to face the very possible death of her own father. It’s a lot for anyone to handle. He feels for her. Hopefully she gets some down time to recover. If he gets kicked out of Starfleet, maybe they can take that trip to Italy. Eat some food together. 

He reaches out, places his hand on her bicep, covered by the utilitarian blue cloth of sickbay. 

“Commander,” he says. Gives her arm a gentle pat. 

Her eyelashes flutter, lift from her cheeks. Her eyes look blue now, when faced with the gown she’s wearing. Crystal clear. 

“Hi,” she says.

“You ready to go back to your quarters?” he asks. She nods against her arm. 

He helps her sit up, but she’s fine. She smooths her hair down self-consciously. What she’d been wearing when she’d arrived in sickbay is long gone, recycled in the replicator, so Dr. Fournier gives her a robe and slippers to walk back to her quarters. Before she goes, she leans over her father’s stasis pod one more time, her hand against the glass.

“How long until we reach Earth?” she asks. 

“About ten hours,” Tom says. 

He walks her all the way to her quarters, though he worries that he’s the one who seems like he just got out of sickbay. He’s exhausted and the long corridor seems like it’s endless, stretching out in front of him with a slight wobble. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” she asks.

“I got a catnap not long ago,” he says, which is the truth. 

“Maybe I’m walking you home,” she says with a laugh. 

“It’s just been a weird day,” he admits. 

“I’ll say,” she agrees. 

He knows she hasn’t yet read the mission report, doesn’t know that he’d cracked the last weeks of his probation clear down the middle. He won’t tell her now. He knows he’d do it exactly the same way if given the chance and he isn’t sure that his father didn’t make him go on this mission so exactly this would happen. Owen can be manipulative and this is just the way he likes to do it. Hiding behind duty and service. Pushing someone off the edge of a cliff only to berate them for falling.

“Come in, won’t you?” Janeway says. 

He really just wants to crawl back into bed and knock out until Earth is visible from the viewport, but for her, he’ll power through. But once inside, she seems unsure of herself. 

“It’s always weird to be alone when you’re coming down off an adrenaline high,” Tom says, throwing her a bone. 

“Yes,” she says. “Exactly.” She points to the replicator. “Help yourself. I’m just going to go… change.” 

The quarters are small enough that even though the door closes behind her, he can hear the sonic shower go on, the water falling into the sink. He can even hear her spit after she brushes her teeth. It’s all very intimate. He hears it all, reclined on the small sofa, his boots hanging off the end.

Maybe he should help himself to her replicator. A cup of coffee, a shot of espresso, a gallon of raktajino. But instead, right there in her quarters, he falls asleep.

oooo

She can feel them drop out of warp once they hit their solar system. She knows she should wake him now. She glances over from where she’s sat at the desk. He’s still asleep. She’d left his boots on, afraid of waking him up but had covered him with the blanket from the bed. She’d gotten plenty of sleep in sickbay but after reading the mission report, she knows he’d been running on empty for awhile. 

He’d saved her life. He’d saved her father’s life too, perhaps. 

She can hear Owen’s voice in her head already, pointing out that it was Janeway’s idea to get Tom to come over to help them on the first shuttle, but she’d likely have bled to death without him shoving a clotting bandage against her wound and definitely the rescued _Melona_ crew, the few they’d managed to save, would have been lost as well. 

He’d also violated his probation. She winces, thinking about it again. What the hell was he supposed to do? It was a shitty situation they’d put him in. She hopes that if they even bother to do an investigation, he’s cleared and relieved of his probation. From Commander Miller’s report, it seems that Ensign Paris is born to be flying something. He’d handled that situation with a clear head, had saved everyone’s life with his quick thinking and skill. Even a veteran pilot couldn’t have lined up those two shuttles while simultaneously expanding an experimental shield design. That takes real focus, creativity, and intelligence. Owen Paris had always said that his son was a prodigy and it’s clear he was right.

Tom must subconsciously feel the drop from warp, because he starts to stir when it happens. She rests her hand on her chin and watches him come back to consciousness. She’s clean and back in her full uniform. She even put her hair up, twisting it into a bun and pinning it securely in place. She figures she’ll be spending some time at Starfleet medical. As soon as she can, she’ll call her mother. 

Tom opens his eyes, catches her staring. 

“Oh,” he says. “I fell asleep.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “You needed it.” 

“How long?” he asks. 

“Well,” she says. “We’re almost home.”

He sits up with surprise. “What?”

“I left for awhile and had a chat with Commander Miller and Captain Eriksson. Read everyone’s report. We’re all so… impressed with you, Ensign Paris.” 

“Thank you,” he says. “You should have woken me and sent me back to my own quarters.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t mind.” She rises and he does too, tries to fold the blanket but gives up on that pretty quickly and just drapes it across the back of the sofa instead. “Ensign,” she says. “Tom.”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“You saved my life, you know.” 

“I like to think you would have done the same for me,” he says. 

She gives him a smile. “I would have tried.” She extends her hand and he takes it, give her a firm handshake. He doesn’t let go right away and she doesn’t either and they stand, holding hands. She wants to say something else, something more meaningful, something that helps him understand that if she could, she would, but they can’t right now so they just have to-

“ _Bridge to Janeway_.”

She drops his hand and he nods. Maybe he already understands. Maybe it’s better this way, anyway.

She taps her badge. 

oooo

Once they get home, Janeway goes off with her father and Tom just goes home. He figures if someone wants him to do something specific, they’ll let him know. And they do. He’s not home two hours before a message comes through his console that he’s scheduled for a meeting at Starfleet Headquarter with the probation board in two days time. 

He hasn’t yet seen his father. 

His mother says nothing about anything, so she must know what happened already. He’s sure Eriksson filed a report before they even made it home. His mother simply asks him if he wants something to eat, fixes the meal for him, leaves him alone. 

His father isn’t home when he goes to bed, but when he wakes up the next morning and goes downstairs for coffee and maybe a chocolate filled croissant, Owen is at the table in his uniform, reading a PADD. 

“Son,” he says as a greeting. 

“Father,” Tom replies, walking past him to the replicator. “Coffee, black.” 

Maybe he’ll just take it back to his room. But Owen kicks out the chair across from him.

“Have a seat,” he says. 

Tom stifles a sigh, sits down. Sips at the bitter brew. He finds that while he prefers cream and sugar, black does a better job of waking him up. He thought maybe he’d go for a ride on his hover bike today. Get out of town, try to clear his head a little. 

“I read Captain Eriksson’s report,” Owen says when Tom doesn’t start the conversation.

“I don’t doubt that,” Tom says.

“I also pulled your file,” Owen says. “Three new letters of commendation in the last 72 hours.”

“What?”

“Captain Eriksson, Commander Ben Miller, and Lieutenant Commander Kathryn… Janeway,” he says, glancing down at the PADD. “Who was wounded in action.” He clears his throat gruffly.

“Grazed by a phaser. Or, you know, something like it,” Tom says. “She’s fine. Can’t say the same for her father.” 

“Still,” he says. “You violated your probation.”

“I sure did,” Tom replies, slurping his coffee. “Somehow I think watching fellow officers die wouldn’t have come with glowing letters in my file.” 

“You’ll have to talk to the probation board,” he threatens.

“They’ve already set a date,” Tom says. “Any other information that I already know you’d like to tell me?”

“This is serious.”

“I know I did the right thing out there and if Starfleet doesn’t agree, then I don’t want to work for them anyway,” Tom says. “And frankly, I’m not real impressed with Starfleet’s conduct or yours right now.”

“Excuse me?” he says. That tone of voice used to scare Tom. Now his father looks like a tired old man. Balding and overweight.

“You left Admiral Janeway and his crew out there for _months_ to get tortured because you didn’t want to upset the Neshaki’i. And for what? Dilithium? A weapon? Passage through their space? What they did to those people was barbaric and they lied about it right to your face. They used their telepathy to trick the first rescue crew into leaving without them and still, you waited months to send a second. What could be so important that you left Admiral Janeway and his crew to rot for so long? There’s no good enough answer. You should be ashamed.” 

Tom leans back to savor the surprise on his father’s face. 

“And then,” he says softly. “You sent his daughter to clean up your mess. What a coward you are, Vice Admiral. Make sure you let the probation board know that I told you so. Even out those letters of commendation.” 

He walks out of the kitchen only to find his mother hovering just outside the door, hand over her mouth. Tom has talked back to his father before, but this time feels different. It’s more than just a clash of personalities. Tom knows he’s clearly in the right and he thinks this time Owen does, too. His mother reaches out, just brushes his arm with her fingers, but doesn’t try to stop him. 

He changes quickly in his room, then goes downstairs again and out the back door. He has his leather coat, sturdy pants, jeans. It’s as cold as California ever gets now and he’s glad for the helmet as he starts his hover bike and tears out of their neighborhood just as fast as he can. 

The next time he comes back to this house, it will be to get his stuff. If Starfleet shit cans him, the terms of his probation won’t apply anymore anyway and if they don’t, he’ll negotiate for his good behavior. 

He almost heads south, toward Santa Cruz, but at the last minute he changes his mind and heads north instead. He’ll stop by medical and see if Commander Janeway is there. He wants to be sure that she and her father are okay before he blows the rest of his life. 

He almost never takes the hover bike into the city. It’s so densely populated, so many ships and shuttles and transports coming and going that he has to stay low, at street level, and then he has to navigate around pedestrians. He decides he’ll fly out over the water, come in from the other side. It’s the kind of risky move that comes with more embarrassment than real consequence. If the engines cut out he’ll just get wet and have to swim awhile, will be out of a hover bike, but it won’t kill him. He sticks close to shore, anyway, ducking under the bridge and then back to land, touching wheels down and riding like a motorcycle and parking it a few streets away.

His boots are wet from the spray of the water, but he’d tucked them hems of his pants into them, so his feet and pants are dry. He carries his helmet in with him, walks to the kiosk and enters Admiral Janeway’s name into the terminal. The computer spits back that he’s in an intensive care ward and asks for Tom’s credentials. 

“Ensign Thomas Eugene Paris,” he says to the computer. He expects that it will be restricted to family only, that the computer will let him leave a note and inform the family and the Admiral’s care providers that he’d stopped by to pay his respects but instead the interface flashes green and spits him out a card and directs him to the lifts.

He takes the card, looking at it in his hand, and then carefully inserts it to call the lift. The lift makes him verify his voice again and then starts to move, depositing him at the correct ward. When the doors open, a nurse is waiting for him.

“Ensign Paris?” he says. 

“Uh… yeah,” he answers.

“I’ll show you to the family,” the nurse says. 

“Sure,” Tom says. “I… never mind.” He’s just surprised. It’s not the nurse’s fault. 

He’s led to a waiting area and is presented to not Commander Janeway, but her mother.

“Do you remember me?” she asks, waving the nurse away. 

“Um,” Tom says. 

“You were just a little boy,” she says. “I’m Kathryn’s mother. I’m Gretchen.”

“Nice to see you again, ma’am,” Tom says, dutifully. 

“Kathryn seemed to think either you or your father would be stopping by so we put you both on the list,” she says. “Guess she was right.”

“She usually is,” Tom says, glancing past Gretchen.

“Oh, she’s not here. She had to go to, uh, compulsory counseling, I suppose. They have to make sure she’s fit to return to duty. She did it once before, after the Cardassians had her.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Tom says.

“Do you have time to sit with me?” Gretchen asks. “All I have to do is wait, really.”

Tom nods and they move to a set of chairs with a small table between them. He sets his helmet down. 

“How is your husband, ma’am?” he asks. 

“They woke him up!” Gretchen says. “But I’m afraid he’ll have a long road ahead of him. He’s not speaking, just yet.”

“I saw him… I was there, when your daughter, uh, retrieved him.” 

“I’m always on him to lose weight so, I guess I can’t nag him about that anymore,” Gretchen says. Her smile looks like her daughter’s. 

“They think he’ll be alright, though?” Tom asks.

“I suspect he’ll finally retire,” she says. “And then we’ll work it out. I spent the last nine months sure he was dead, so even if he’s never quite… the same. I’m grateful for it.” 

“Good,” Tom says. 

“Kathryn said you rescued him together, is that true?” Gretchen asks, peering at him with those sharp eyes. 

“Well,” Tom says. “I flew the shuttle.”

She laughs, and that sounds like her daughter as well. 

“You did more than that,” Gretchen says. “How’s your mother?”

Tom tilts his head. “She’s okay. I think she liked having me back in the house. My father works long hours, so she spends a lot of time alone. She’s an introvert, so mostly she doesn’t mind but I think sometimes she still does get lonely.”

Gretchen nods. “You have a sister, don’t you?”

“I have two,” Tom says. 

“And where are they?” Gretchen demands.

Tom smiles at her demanding questions. Tom has met Edward Janeway before and he’s more subdued, nearly gentle. Soft-spoken. A walk-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick type of admiral. It’s clear Commander Janeway gets her personality from her mother. 

“Moira lives off-world,” Tom says. “We don’t see her much. And Kathleen moved to Australia a few years ago. She’s a homebody, like my mother, so we see her on birthdays, mostly.” 

“Australia?”

“She’s a surfer. Teaches at a school there,” Tom says. He should go see her, maybe. If he gets fired, the first stop is to sleep on his sister’s couch for a month and bum around the beach. Get very tan, sleep with as many people as possible, make lots of bad choices. 

“And you joined Starfleet,” Gretchen says. 

“I did,” he says. “I thought it would... help.”

Gretchen doesn’t ask what he means. 

“There’s a replicator. Help yourself,” she says. He does. He replicates a pot of tea, enough for them both and Gretchen does take a cup, sips it while looking at the drizzly rain hitting the windows. It’s just started. 

“I worry about her,” Gretchen says. “Kathryn, I mean. She takes things so hard. Perceives things to be failures when they’re just… how things are.”

“Like this rescue mission?” he asks. 

“And the last,” Gretchen says. “She tore her whole life down and started to rebuild it. She lost her ship, her boyfriend, her mentor. Took her promotion and tucked it away.”

“You think she should have taken the assignment on the _Billings_?” he asks.

“No, no. I just think she thinks she should have,” Gretchen says. 

“There are always more ships, ma’am. She comes from a long line of decorated officers. No one is going to begrudge her one year on the ground.” 

Gretchen looks past him, her face changes a little. Softening, shifting it to worry. “Uh oh.” 

He turns, sees Commander Janeway barreling down the hall toward them through the clear glass that encloses this waiting room. She looks upset. 

She slaps the panel to open the door and then comes in. 

“One month!” she says in a suppressed, furious whisper. She looks at him and says, “Hi.” Then turns back to her mother, expecting sympathy.

“What does that mean?” she asks patiently.

“I’m off duty for an entire month!” she says. “Mandatory counseling sessions twice a week and then they’ll re-evaluate!” 

“Ah,” Gretchen says. 

“Jetic and Prisu have split your class load, he sent me a note,” Tom says. It’s meant as a consolation, but she flashes a warning look at him and so he decides to shut up.

“Maybe it’s good,” her mother says.

“Good?” she demands.

“You don’t sleep,” Gretchen says. “You’re overworked. You’ve had two traumatic missions in two years. You’ve reduced your entire life down to a bubble of what, four people? Half of us in this room right now?” 

“Mother!” she says, aghast. 

“Take the break, kitty cat,” she says. 

“I don’t… I have no need… I can’t believe that you, of all people!” Janeway says, hands on her hips, full sentences beyond her. She’d gotten wet on the walk over here, so her hair is deflated a little, tendrils escaping from the barrette holding it back. There are dark spots of blue on her uniform where the rain had pelted her. 

Tom has never been great at staying quiet.

“Well, I’m about to get fired, so…” he says. 

They both swivel to look at him.

“What?” Janeway says. “No you aren’t.”

“Gotta go face the music with the probation board,” he says. “I violated my probation.”

“You saved our lives,” she says. “I put a note in your record.”

“As did Captain Eriksson and Commander Miller, but I still did it so they have every right to rescind my commission.” 

“They will not do that,” Janeway says. “What you did was nothing short of heroic.”

“Heroic?” Gretchen says. “All he said was that he flew the shuttle.” 

“And saved my life and kept dad and Lieutenant Tabaha alive long enough to get us all to sickbay,” Janeway says. “And he didn’t just fly the shuttle. He flew two shuttles, docked them together mid flight while adjusting their experimental shielding and made it into the cargo bay without killing anyone.” 

“Two shuttles, huh?” Gretchen asks. “Impressive.”

“Well, one was… uh, remotely,” he says.

Janeway sits down, her steam let out. Tom had managed to diffuse her anger with a little misdirection. 

“I’ll go to the probation meeting with you,” she says. 

“Oh, I’ll be fine either way, Commander,” he says.

Still Janeway frowns. “How’s dad?”

“Stable,” Gretchen says. “They have him sedated while they do some more internal healing.” 

Janeway nods. “I’m going to go peek at him,” she says. 

“He looks exactly the same as when you left,” Gretchen says. “Why don’t you two go do something fun?”

“Fun?” Janeway asks, her brow wrinkling. 

“You’re off duty for a while,” her mother says. “And your meeting is when?”

“Tomorrow,” Tom says. 

“There’s no need to stay here all day worrying. I’ll let you know if anything changes,” Gretchen says. 

“Mom, I’m not going to let you sit here by yourself all day,” Janeway says. “That’s absurd.”

“Phoebe should be here any minute,” Gretchen says. “She’ll sit with me.” Gretchen shrugs. “Unless you want to wait and say hello to your sister?”

Janeway narrows her eyes. “She’ll give me hell for not being here.”

“She doesn’t have to know you aren’t still in official meetings,” Gretchen says. 

Tom leans forward and says, “Your mom is awesome.” 

“You can come home for dinner,” Gretchen says. “You too, Mr. Paris.” 

“Me?” Tom asks.

“Go on,” Gretchen says. “You two deserve a day off. Don’t waste it in here.” 

Janeway finally looks over at Tom. He shrugs. “I know a great bar.” 

“A bar,” she says. 

“We’ll ride up the coast,” he says. “It’ll be fun.”

“Ride?” she says.

He knocks on his helmet. 

“It’s raining!” she exclaims, her voice going hoarse a little as it rises. 

“You can wear my helmet,” he says. “And my jacket.” 

“Bye kids,” Gretchen says. 

oooo

Tom does give her his helmet. He promises her that he has a spare and he does produce one from his side bag. It’s just a metal ring that he places around the back of his neck and then, at the push of a button, a force field helmet comes up around his head and face. He does this as they huddle under an awning near where he’d left his bike.

“Why don’t we stop at my apartment,” she says, before she puts on his helmet. “I can at least change. You can’t go anywhere without your jacket, you’ll get soaked!”

He pulls a sweater from his back and she takes it, putting it on over her uniform. It won’t protect her for long, but it will make the short ride more bearable, Tom insists. Then she puts on the helmet. He gets on the hover bike first and she climbs on after him. 

“This is crazy,” she says, though she can barely hear herself. He starts the bike. When it starts to rise, she has no choice but to put her arms around him and hang on. He touches a panel and then his voice gets filtered through a comm system in her helmet. 

“You have to tell me where we’re going,” he says. 

“Divisadero and Vallejo,” she says. Then she clutches at him as he takes off without another word. 

By the time they get to her towering building, she’s wet and cold and she’s come to the realization that she can’t leave him standing out on the street. She has to invite him upstairs. She likes that she’s the only one who ever goes inside of her small apartment, but she supposes Tom is better than her mother or his father or her sister. 

The counselor today had accused her of shutting people out, of making her life smaller to keep it more manageable. To have more control, or at least the illusion of it. The words sting, now, as she contemplates not inviting up someone she genuinely likes. 

He can park the bike on the street here, so he does. She leaves her helmet on until they get inside and then she takes it off, feels like shaking off like a dog. The borrowed sweater is wet, her uniform underneath damp. Her legs are soaked. 

“Is this bar near a transporter?” she asks, handing him the helmet. 

“Commander, now where is your sense of adventure?” he asks with a smile.

“You’re already having fun, aren’t you?” she asks, leading them to the lifts. 

“A little,” he admits. 

“Floor seventeen,” she tells the lift. 

“This building is huge,” he says. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “It was available when I needed it. The unit is small but I don’t need a lot of space.”

He’s quiet down the corridor and then waits at the threshold of her door until she says, “Come in.”

It’s not much. A small sitting area, an alcove where her bed is, the bathroom. Some units have a kitchen but this one doesn’t, just a replicator. It’s all she needs. She doesn’t even have much stuff of her own besides her clothing in the small closet. A few knick knacks. 

“Do you mind if I…?” he says, gesturing to the bathroom.

“Of course,” she says. 

While he’s indisposed, she takes off his sweater and drapes it over the back of one of the chairs at her little table near the replicator. She sheds the jacket of her uniform, takes down her hair. She doesn’t really have anything appropriate to wear weather wise that isn’t Starfleet issue, so she’ll have to replicate a jacket. She can just wear her uniform boots. 

When he comes back out again, she sighs, says, “We don’t have to do this. You probably have better things to do. Please don’t feel obligated-”

“I don’t,” he says. “I was going to go up the coast anyway today, it’s one of my favorite things to do. I’d really love for you to come. But if you don’t want to, I understand. I know some people prefer to be alone after traumatic events.”

She bristles a little at the mention of trauma, thinking sourly of the eight counseling sessions stretched out before her, but that isn’t Tom’s fault. 

“You don’t think it’s inappropriate?” she asks. “You don’t ever worry about it?”

“Our friendship?” he asks. 

“I’m your commanding officer,” she says. 

“Right now you’re on leave and I’m in limbo,” he says. “Besides, who has to know?”

She wants to say yes. She wants to ride on the back of his bike again, holding on to him. Here she’ll sit and fret about things out of her control. 

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s do it.”

He helps her scroll through her options and they end up replicating a water resistant jumpsuit and her own leather jacket. She changes in the bedroom alcove and when she comes out, braiding her hair over her shoulder, he grins at the sight of her. 

“Very badass,” he says and she laughs, genuinely laughs. 

“I’m not sure about that,” she says, securing the end of her braid.

“Trust me,” he says. “It’s a good look.”

She feels herself flush, knows deep down that this is a bad idea. But she’s in too deep now, she can’t stop herself. Doesn’t want too. It’s just one day. Can’t she have just one day where she throws caution to the wind? Goes to a bar with a man she shouldn’t go with?

The rain holds steady, but now it doesn’t penetrate what she’s wearing, so climbing onto the back of his bike is purely thrilling. She doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around his midsection this time. If she didn’t have the helmet, she’d rest her chin on the back of his shoulder. 

“I like to go fast,” he warns, his voice filtering through her helmet once more. “Just squeeze me three times if it’s too much.”

“It won’t be,” she says. “Hit it, Mr. Paris.” 

She can feel him chuckle. “Yes, ma’am.” 

It is fast, though she thinks his body shields her from the brunt of the water and wind. He stays low until they get to the bridge and then he kicks at a lever with his boot and the bike shoots up. She wonders if he can hear her laughing through the helmet’s comm system. 

At the speeds he goes, the ride seems short. Already he’s slowing down, already he’s easing into a small town, bringing them down to the pavement, the bike leaning as they follow the curves of the road. 

They slow to a stop on what appears to be the main downtown street. He parks the bike around a corner, holds it steady while she dismounts, pulling her helmet off. It’s not raining here, just foggy and wet pavement. 

“If that’s how you ride a hover bike, it makes me wish I was conscious for you flying those shuttles!” she exclaims. 

He grins. “I’ll fly you around one day,” he promises. “Maybe when we’re not having an emergency.” 

“See that you do!” she says. “So, where are we?”

“Bodega Bay,” he says. “A town untouched by time.”

She looks around. “I can’t believe we both grew up in ancient houses with traditionalist mothers and your hobby is to go somewhere stuck in the past.” 

“First of all, rude,” he says. “Secondly, when you put it like that, it seems like our mothers should probably be friends.”

They walk around the corner, down the block.

“Oh, I think if they lived in the same time zone, they would be,” she says. He stops to open a door for her, they step into the dark bar. It’s dark because of the wood and the cloudy day outside, but the place itself isn’t dank. It’s warm, dry, and inviting. It’s the tail end of the lunch hour, so there are people spotted around, sitting at high top tables and at the bar top. Tom winds them through to a row of four booths along a wall. Three are occupied; they slide into the fourth.

“What’s your poison, Commander? Wine? Beer?” he asks. 

“Whiskey, usually,” she says. “I like a rye.”

He lets out a low whistle. “See, I knew you were a badass!”

“Oh, stop,” she says. “What about you?”

“Usually beer if the sun is still out,” he says. “Stay here. I’ll go get us something.”

“A menu, too, if they’ve got one. I’d prefer you not to have to tie me to the bike later.” She flutters her eyelashes at him. She’s mostly joking.

“Please, I’d at least dump you on a transporter pad,” he says. “I have some respect.” 

She has nothing to do but wait while he secures their drinks. She didn’t bother to stick a PADD in her pocket, her communicator is under her zipped up jumpsuit, attached to her undershirt. She studies the back of Tom. He’d shed his jacket, he has on a long sleeved shirt, slate gray, and black pants. 

She tries to remember what Justin was wearing the last time she saw him and she can’t. It wasn’t a uniform - he’d been stuffing that into his weekend bag, trying to make a hasty exit. No one had dumped the other, they’d just mutually come to the same conclusion. Their lives were going different directions. She’d been sad for a while because they’d been sort of talking about marriage - talking around it really, but she also doesn’t want a marriage like her parents where one person is always gone.

Maybe she doesn’t want a marriage at all.

Tom turns around holding two low-ball glasses half-full of an amber liquid. 

“Okay, they didn’t have a rye, but the barkeep says this is his favorite,” Tom says. “Also…” He produces a menu from under his arm. She takes it, scrolls through her options. 

“I’m sorry, I’m starving,” she says. 

“I’ve had coffee and tea today,” he says. “Order one of everything.” 

The whole day seems like an indulgence, so they tap the menu, ordering a bunch of fried appetizers, a hamburger, a plate of fried chicken. When everything comes out from the kitchen, it sits in the middle of the table and they both share, picking at everything until plates are empty and the chicken is down the bone.

The whiskey relaxes her, the food makes her feel full and warm. They have another round, though Tom switches to beer and she requests a mixer for her second drink. By the time they leave, they’ve been there well over two hours. 

The fog has burned off somewhat when they step back outside, the rain stopped. Tom won’t drive because they didn’t drink synthehol, so they decide to walk through town toward the water. 

“We can head back any time, you know,” he reminds her. “If you’re worried.”

“About my father?” she asks. “I am, of course, but I know my mother will call if anything changes. She was right, I think. I did make my life very small.” She shakes her head. “The counselor today was new, not the same one that cleared me last time, and yet they accurately predicted exactly what I’m going through from the insomnia to the kind of nightmares I have.” 

“Well, trauma follows a pretty predictable pattern,” Tom says. 

“No one is interesting or special as they think they are,” she says dryly. “That’s the real lesson.”

“Maybe it’s that no one can brush everything aside forever,” he offers.

“Ouch,” she says with a wince.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Ouch because you’re right,” she says. 

He elbows her a little as they walk. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, that’s all. I learn things the hard way.” 

“I plotted out this whole life for myself and now I’m not even sure the things I’ve been working toward are what I want or what your father wants,” she says. 

He bursts out laughing. “And I thought it was only me!” 

They’ve reached the point where paved road becomes sand. It’s too cold to take off shoes so they have to navigate the shifting ground beneath them with boots. She feels the burn in her thighs by the time the reach the water, gray with crashing waves. 

“I wanted to join the Federation Naval Patrol,” he says after a few minutes of them looking out at the waves. “My father wanted Starfleet.” 

“Sailing and flying, not so different,” she says. 

“Maybe if Starfleet kicks me out, I can get a boat,” he says, though his optimism sounds forced. 

“They aren’t going to do that,” she says. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” he says.

“I’ll use the very last of my clout with your father to save you,” she says. “He owes me that much.”

She hopes it doesn’t come to that. She doesn’t think it will but…best to be prepared.

She looks over at him only to find that he’s not looking at the water at all, but back at her. 

oooo

There’s some debate as to where they should ride to catch a transporter. Finally, she agrees that they have enough time to take the hover bike all the way back to his parent’s house and then walk to the transporter station in Portola Valley. 

The ride back is slightly more tense with the day behind them. She holds onto him again, he can feel the pressure around his ribs but he also can feel her pulling away. She thinks she shared too much on the beach, whiskey allowing her to air her vulnerabilities to him. She clams up as she sobers up. 

He stops the bike at the beginning of his street and the climb off, killing the engine.

“I park it in a shed behind the house,” he says. “If we roll it in, I can always get in and out without being noticed.”

“Mmm,” she says. 

She looks twitchy now, she’s rubbing her hands together. 

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “You really don’t have to come all the way to Indiana.”

“I know,” he says. “But your mother invited me.”

“Right, but your probation thing is in the morning,” she hedges.

“Do you not want me to go?” he asks.

“No, I do,” she says. “But my sister is there and she’s terrible.”

“I have two sisters,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to go,” she says barreling on anyway. 

“I don’t,” he says. “Commander, I hate this house. I hate being here. I can’t wait to move out. Every second spent away from my father is a gift and that gift doubles down when I’m with you.” 

She tucks her hair behind her ear. Nods without looking at him. 

“I just have to take you at your word,” she says. 

“I wish that you would,” he agrees.

She waits at the end of the driveway on the other side of the stone fence while he hustles the bike into the shed and then runs along the perimeter of the fence, back to the street. It takes three minutes, he’s done it enough times that he’s wearing a path in the grass. 

It’s nearly 1600 hours in California, so they hustle to the transport station. When they materialize in Bloomington, they can see through the windows that it’s sleeting.

“Hiya Commander Janeway,” the transporter tech greets. He looks barely older than a teenager, grins at her from beneath a mop of red hair. 

“Hi Andrew,” she says. “You mind if we borrow some weather gear? We’ll bring it back on the return trip.”

“Sure,” he says. “In the locker. Warmer in California, eh?”

“Drier, too,” she says. She opens the metal door and there’s a row of silver all weather coats hanging. She pulls down two. What fits him is huge on her, but she doesn’t mind. 

“Half a kilometer,” she yells when they get outside. The wind is howling. “Bet you regret coming now.”

“A little!” he says, but he nudges her again, and she laughs. 

It’s brutally cold. Why would anyone live here? By the time they get to the long driveway of the Janeway house, his boots are caked in mud and his face is frozen and a little wet. She nearly slips in the mud three meters from the house and the only reason she doesn’t fall is that she falls into him and he steadies her. 

The blast of heat when she opens the back door feels heavenly. He’d wondered why she led them around the back of the house instead of going in the front door, but the backdoor reveals a mud room. A row of hooks above a long bench. They hang their borrowed coats, clean their shoes and leave them behind for the return journey. Her face is rosy and her eyes bright. 

“You know what, I think I’ve been here before,” he says. “It’s kind of familiar.”

“My parents used to have a harvest party,” she says. “When the apples came in. I bet you came as a boy.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Apples on sticks covered in caramel!”

“My mother’s speciality,” she says, opening the door to the main house.

Someone yells, “No, it _is_ them!”

“Phoebe,” Janeway says softly. She makes a face which makes him smile, only because she’s so stern and professional generally. Her sibling is a soft spot, and a sore one, too. He feels very privileged to be here now, witnessing Janeway in her childhood home. It’s like he gets an intimate peek at who she truly is, without the uniform in the way. 

The person who comes around the corner has dark curly hair, much rounder cheeks and hips, but she has the same petiteness as her sister, the same shifting gray eyes. 

“Finally,” Phoebe says with an edge of exasperation. “Dinner has been in the warmer for thirty five minutes!”

“Hello to you, too,” Janeway says. 

Phoebe looks Tom up and down and then sticks out her hand. “Phoebe Janeway,” she says.

He takes the hand, gives it a firm, but not too hard, shake. “Tom Paris,” he says. 

Phoebe’s eyes widen a little and she says, “Kathryn, you brought your boss home?”

“No,” Janeway sniffs. “I brought his son.”

“You think _I’m_ the Vice-Admiral?” Tom scoffs. “What, I joined the Academy when I was three?”

“No,” Phoebe says, taken aback. “I just… your name…”

“Child prodigy Tom Paris,” Janeway says with a snicker. 

Tom would, generally, be more polite to a brand new person, but he can tell Janeway is on edge in regards to her sister, can tell from the way that Phoebe introduced herself that she is aggressive, so he made the split second decision to push back, if only a little. It works. Phoebe spins in a huff, heads deeper into the house. Tom gives Janeway a quick wink before she leads him into the kitchen. 

“Bad,” she hisses, but she doesn’t look like she means it at all.

Tom moves to shake Gretchen’s hand in the kitchen, but Gretchen hugs him instead, which only seems to make Phoebe sulkier. 

“I’m sorry we made dinner wait,” he says, sincerely. 

“Oh, honey, that’s what the warmer is for!” she says. “Hi, kitten.”

“Hi,” Janeway says. “Should we wash up?”

“Oh, use the sanitizer,” Gretchen says. Janeway takes it from the cutting board, runs it over Tom’s hands for him and then he returns the favor. 

The house is warm and well lit, insulated well too because they don’t hear the storm outside. Around the table is bread, roasted chicken, a bowl of steamed veggies, some brown rice. A little ceramic pot full of butter.

“How’s daddy?” Janeway asks, passing the rice to Tom.

“No change,” Gretchen says. “I spoke with his doctor and she said they want to wake him up again tomorrow. If there’s still no improvement with speech, there’s a surgery they want to try.”

“A surgery?” Janeway asks. “What kind of surgery?”

“Oh I’m not… the doctor sent notes to the console, you can take a look. She seemed hopeful that it would not be necessary.” 

“We were at the hospital for hours,” Phoebe says. 

“Kitten was there, you just missed her,” Gretchen says. 

Tom and his sisters aren’t best friends, but they get along better than Kathryn and her sister. He feels grateful for them, that they don’t constantly bicker across the dinner table. 

“It’s been a long week,” is all Janeway says softly.

“Commander Janeway was nothing short of heroic on that rescue mission,” Tom says.

“You make your boyfriend call you Commander?” Phoebe says in disbelief. This gives Tom pause, he’s shocked enough that he doesn’t say anything at all, glancing first at Gretchen and then Janeway, his fork halfway to his lips. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Janeway says. 

“We work together,” Tom says, managing to find his voice. He lowers his fork back down.

“Really?” Phoebe says. “Oh. So you what, brought your employee to dinner?”

“Why are you like this?” Janeway demands. “Why do you have to be so unlikable?”

“Kitty ca-” Gretchen starts. 

“Why do _you_ need everyone to like you?” Phoebe demands hotly over her mother. 

“Girls,” Gretchen says. “Please don’t-”

“Dad would hate that you’re acting like a snotty, spoiled brat,” Janeway says. 

“Don’t you dare bring daddy into this!” Phoebe says. 

“We’re not allowed to date!” Tom says, raising his voice enough to be heard over all three Janeway women. 

They all stop and stare at him. 

And then, from somewhere else in the house, a loud beeping. It beeps five times - four short, one long.

“Shit,” Janeway says, and rises to go investigate.

“That’s the weather alert,” Gretchen says, even though they all know what a weather alert sounds like. They sit in silence until Janeway comes back.

“They shut down all non-emergency transports,” Janeway says. 

“At least you’re somewhere safe for the night,” Gretchen says. 

“He has to be in San Francisco in the morning,” Janeway says.

“Not until 1100 hours,” he says, and that is a relief, that it’s not an earlier meeting. That he won’t have to trudge through the snow first thing, hurry home to shower and put on a fresh uniform, maybe for the last time.

“It’ll clear by then,” Gretchen says. “Everyone just… eat, hmm?”

“You can stay in the guest room,” Janeway says to Tom, ignoring her mother’s request.

“What about you?” Phoebe asks her. 

“I can sleep in daddy’s office,” she says. 

This seems to appease Phoebe so they all resume eating, the only sound forks hitting plates. 

oooo

Tom is quiet through the end of the meal, maybe embarrassed, she can’t tell. She wants to apologize for her family but she knows, also, that he understands. He’s got a tricky family situation as well, all families are complex, everyone does the best with what they’re given. 

His silence only encourages her own. They stand side by side at the sink washing the dishes and then putting them away again. It doesn’t take long. The cleaner hums for ten second intervals, dings, the dishes come out sanitized.

“This is better than just recycling everything?” Tom asks, finally breaking his silence.

“Don’t get her started,” Janeway warns. “She has a good ten minute lecture at the ready about how it’s ridiculous she should have to negotiate with a computer every time she wants a clean plate.”

“It’s not really a negotiation… more like a request,” he says. 

“She doesn’t like to talk to technology,” Janeway says.

“She could use the interface to manually-”

“You’re not going to think of anything that we haven’t thought of,” Janeway says. “Trust me.”

He puts the last of the silverware back in the drawer.

“I’m sorry we’re stuck here,” she says. So much for not apologizing. 

“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time with your family,” Tom says. “I feel like I’m intruding.”

“You are, in fact, maintaining the peace with your very presence,” she says. 

Outside the window, they can see sleet has turned to slow, that several centimeters have already gathered on the fence, on the bare branches of the trees. She can’t see out any farther than that. 

“When Phoebe was little, she had two horses,” Kathryn says now. “On nights like this, she’d want to go sleep out in the barn so they wouldn’t be scared of the storm.” 

“And you?” he asks. 

“Who had time for horses when there was math and science to learn, sports to play, homework to be done,” she says. “We’ve always been really different.” She wipes her hands on her pants. “I’ll show you the guest room. I think we need to change the bedding.” 

She calls it the guest room, but he can tell when they get up there that it’s her bedroom, or at least it was, at one point. The generic decor only masks poorly the years spent in this room. There’s still evidence of her when she opens the closet. Besides the clothes hanging, there’s a shelf full of school trophies, awards, Academy plaques.

The Academy loves to give out plaques. 

“You know, I wouldn’t feel right taking your room from you. I’m perfectly happy to bunk down in the office,” he says.

“It’s not mine,” she says. She says it so quickly she nearly stumbles over the words and then looks embarrassed. “It used to be, but that was a long time ago.”

“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t want her to feel bad, he’s made the offer and it’s all he can do.

“You must think I’m such a brat,” she says.

“Why?”

“You have a legitimately contentious relationship with your father, your home life suffers for it. I, however, had a very loving family who would welcome me back no matter my failures or successes and we still can’t manage to get along. All this petty bickering. I never want to come here.” She shakes her head, her hair falling into her face. 

“Every family is complex,” he says. “I’ve met more assholes who come from perfect families, who are rotten to the core and don’t even realize it because they’ve been babied and sheltered their whole lives. You aren’t that. You’re just… normal.” 

She scoffs.

“A little contention is character building,” he says. “Your little bit gives you your empathy, which I think is the most important part of any Starfleet officer.” 

“And what does a lot of contention get you?” she asks looking up at him.

“A failed probation, I guess,” he says softly.

“Tom-”

“Sorry,” he whispers, though he’s not. Maybe he thought it might make her laugh but it has just given her a bad feeling.

“I wish things were just a little bit different,” she says, matching his whisper.

“Tomorrow it might be,” he says.

“Or you might be back on duty,” she points out.

“But you aren’t,” he says. 

“I will be,” she reasons. “In time.” 

“Then tonight,” he says, “is the only time we’re both in limbo. Maybe for the next few hours we can skirt the rules a little.”

“We shouldn’t,” she says.

“I know,” he says.

He kisses her anyway. She kisses him back, presses up onto her tip toes and wraps her arms around his neck. 

By the time she hears her mother’s footsteps on the stairs, Tom’s already got the zipper of her jumpsuit down past her navel. They’re on the bed, all thoughts of changing the bedding forgotten. She doesn’t exactly remember the transition from standing to horizontal, except that she enjoyed it immensely. 

She’d know those footsteps on the stairs anywhere, however, and at the sound of them, she pushes Tom away, lips and all, and scrambles to her feet. She yanks the zipper of the jumpsuit back up. Her braid had been coming unraveled at dinner, from the helmet and from the wind, but it’s only a memory now. Her hair is tangled at the ends, tousled, a dead give away. 

Tom has glassy eyes and rosy cheeks and is stumbling to his feet, tripping over a pillow on the floor at the side of the bed. 

Why had they gotten carried away? It’s not even that late, they’d only come up to sort out the bedding. She’d gotten distracted, she’d lost track of time. It’s been so long since someone has kissed her, since she’d wanted to be kissed. 

He’s just keeps running his hands through his hair, making it worse. 

There’s a knock on the door.

“Kitty cat, I made dessert,” she says through the closed door. “You and your friend want to come up for air?”

Righteous indignation is her first inclination, except that her mother is right.

“We’re just talking,” Kathryn says through the door, and then winces. What a stupid thing to say. She looks at Tom, who at least has the good sense to lean over and yank up the blanket so it isn’t so wrinkled. He replaces the fallen pillow, too. “We’ll be right down.” 

“It’s caramel brownies,” her mother says, and it sounds like she’s laughing.

“Thank you, Mrs. Janeway,” Tom calls. 

When the footsteps recede, Kathryn covers her face with her hands. 

“Hey,” Tom says. “Was I that bad?”

“Oh, don’t make this about you,” she says.

He grins. “I like brownies,” he says. “You want a brownie?”

“Tom…”

“Okay,” he says. “I know what you want to do here is go round and round about this. You’re my boss, we shouldn’t do this, you’re my boss, I might get fired, you’re my boss… forever. But what if we just didn’t do that. Not tonight. Let’s just go eat some brownies and then we’ll go to bed and it can be okay.” 

It’s not that simple, she knows, but what choice does she have? She goes over to the small desk and opens the drawer. Her hair brush is inside. She gathers her hair and brushes out the ends, just so it’s not quite so tangled.

Tom looks like he wants to say something, but smartly remains silent. 

Downstairs smells like chocolate, sweet and inviting. Her mother’s brownies are one of the best things she makes, dense and chocolatey and drizzled with caramel.

“Smells amazing,” Tom says, clapping and rubbing his hands together, intent on skipping over the awkward situation upstairs all together. “What’s the occasion?”

“I just found myself feeling optimistic,” Gretchen says. 

“I’m glad, mom,” Kathryn says. She knows her father isn't out of the woods yet, but he’s at least in the best hands he could be in. He’ll likely never be the man who left, not exactly, but it’s better than not knowing his fate at all. 

Phoebe comes in, doesn’t make any passive aggressive digs, just helps herself to a brownie and disappears again, back up to her bedroom.

“Apparently, she has her beau are on the outs,” Gretchen says softly to Tom.

“Did we ever even meet this one?” Kathryn asks. 

“You’re too hard on her,” Gretchen scolds while handing her a plate with her brownie and a small dessert fork. “She’s not as independent as you. She likes having someone to lean on, she feels adrift when she’s alone.” 

“I mean, I like having someone…” Kathryn mutters. “I just don’t think it’s worth the constant breakups.”

“She does,” Gretchen says. “I know she’s been in a bad mood, but cut her some slack.” 

“I’ll try,” Kathryn says. 

After dessert, her mother tidies up the kitchen and announces that she’s off to bed, makes a real production of it. She kisses Kathryn’s forehead and pats Tom’s cheek and then makes herself scarce.

“She’s funny,” Tom says.

“She’s not usually so obvious,” Kathryn says. “But then, I never bring anyone home.”

“Oh,” Tom says, his eyebrows moving up and down. “Why don’t you show me this office. Maybe we can go over what I might say tomorrow.”

“That’s a good idea,” Kathryn says, feeling heat creep up her neck. Maybe he’ll kiss her again. Maybe she’ll let him.

Her father’s office is full of dark wood and plush carpeting. There’s a loveseat, brown leather, that converts to a small overnight bed with a touch of a button. She shows him this; they pretend to look around at the books on the shelf, the things hanging on the wall. There’s a picture of Phoebe and herself when they were eight and five, standing in a cornfield. It sits on his desk. 

“Can I kiss you again?” he asks. It’s very polite of him, she thinks. She remembers the first time Justin had kissed her, manhandling her against the bulkhead in his quarters when she’d gone to check on him, just to see if he was feeling okay. The kiss had been good but there’d been a split second when she’d been terrified. She much prefers Tom’s gentleness and respect to Justin’s temper that he’d labeled as passion. 

“Yes,” she agrees. 

It feels a little different than it did upstairs. Calmer, though just as good. Maybe she’s more present, maybe she just knows what to expect. His tongue in her mouth, his hands in her hair. She remembers going horizontal this time. The back of her knees bumping the edge of the little bed, sitting down, lying back.

“We can stop,” Tom says, more than once. Every so often, offering up a rest stop for her, or an out. 

“I’m okay,” she says, and kisses him again.

From sitting to lying back, her leg hooked over hers. 

That zipper goes down again, this time she gets out of the sleeves, too. He sheds his sweater. 

She puts his hand on her breast over her flimsy tank top because she knows he won’t do it without permission. 

“Kathryn,” he says and then stops, makes a weird face.

“What?” she says.

“I’ve never called you that before,” he realizes. 

“It’s a little late for rank now,” she says. “I know you were going to ask me if I wanted to stop again, but I don’t.”

“Okay,” he says.

“You’re right, this might be our only chance,” she says.

“I hear ya,” he says, dipping his head to catch the lobe of her ear between his teeth.

“We’ll have to be quiet,” she says.

“Can do,” he whispers, right into her ear and it makes her shiver. 

“Lock the door,” she says. “Just in case.” 

He does, wandering over to the door to push the button on the panel. She shimmies out of the legs of her jumpsuit, he strips off his t-shirt, undoes the front of his pants and then gets back onto the bed next to her. He runs a finger along her calf, feeling the warm skin of her bare leg. 

On the desk, the console chimes a much friendlier sound.

“They lifted the weather alert,” Kathryn says softly. 

“Should I get dressed?” Tom teases. “Head back to the transport station?”

“You’d better not!” she says. “You stay here. That’s an order.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says.

She tries not to overthink it. Tom, their lovemaking, the whole situation. Maybe if she’d kept being mean to him because she was mad at his father and mad at herself, she could have avoided this. But he’d been so handsome, so kind to her, supportive when everyone else had only been disappointed in her.

Anyway, it’s too late. Clothes are shed, he reaches between her legs. He’s been a perfect gentleman, really, and not in a performative way, where he double checks only to make sure she notices. He really is just nice and thoughtful, interested in her and what she has to say. But now, with his fingers sliding over her, he finally seems a little impatient. But it’s sexy, it’s endearing. He wants her. 

So she lets her legs fall apart, encourages him to climb onto her. And when he pushes into her, she sighs in pleasure. Not too big, not painful, but filling in just the right way. 

He kisses her neck, her cheek, her eyelid. 

“It’s okay,” she assures him. “Are you okay?”

He grins, all teeth. “Definitely.”

Still, there’s something so freeing about giving in. About throwing her head back in pleasure, about feeling her breasts move in time with his thrusting, about feeling their skin slide together from working up a sweat. He’s whimpering a little, his eyes clenched closed.

“Think about something else,” she says, teasing. “Six times one is six. Six times two is twelve. Six times three is- oh!” 

His thumb against her, moving in deliciously fast circles. He slows his own hips to concentrate on her pleasure, to make room for his hand. Shallow little thrusts. She couldn’t do math right now if she tried, she reaches out and grabs onto his wrist to to anchor herself against the onslaught. 

She’s gotten so used to pleasuring herself, a quick somewhat perfunctory exercise that she’s forgotten what it’s like to hand over control to someone else. Orgasms have become something to force her body into relaxation, to avoid nightmares. She remembers what they’re really for now, how they’re supposed to feel. 

“Six time four, Janeway,” he says, jerking his hips.

“I can’t,” she says. “Don’t stop!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, gives her a hard thrust. It sends pleasure up her spine, pain through her hip flexors. She makes an undignified noise which makes the smile slip off his face. His eyes are glassy, his cheeks red, his mouth hanging open as he watches his fingers working, watches himself move in and out of her. 

Generally, she has no expectations for orgasms the first time she has sex with a new partner. None. She expects it to feel good, expects a positive experience, but bodies are weird and they’re all different and achieving orgasm for her is as much about her head as it is her body. Sometimes she’s too nervous or worked up or distracted.

She realizes she’s going to come this time. She likes Tom so much, is so attracted to him, has been pushing those feelings aside for so long. And there’s something thrilling about how they shouldn’t be doing this, how she’s in her father’s office, how her family is just outside of the door. 

But the most attractive thing is how much he wants her. That she can see him working so hard to make her feel good, to last for her. 

She squeezes her nails into his wrist, feels herself clench down on him. 

“Come on,” he says. “Come on, baby.”

She hates stupid pet names, but it doesn’t stop her, doesn’t even slow her down. She tries to stay quiet, whimpers through clenched teeth, feels herself contract around him. Fuck, it’s good. A real orgasm, one that crashes into her, one she feels from head to curling toes. She’s not exactly as quiet as she likes, but her hoarse cry can’t be helped.

When it’s over, she pulls him down on top of her, kisses him, holds him as he sinks into her again and again. He grunts into her ear when he comes, his whole body tensing.

She runs her hand down his back, her legs wrapped around him, their hearts pounding. 

“Don’t ever call me baby,” she says, clenching around him one last time. It makes his whole body twitch. 

He snorts a little laugh, heavy on her but showing no signs of moving. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. 

oooo

He puts his clothes back on while she sits wrapped up in the blanket. 

“We can talk about it tomorrow,” he says, fastening his pants. “Or not at all, if you’d prefer.” 

“I don’t know yet,” she says. “Take care going up the stairs, they’re creaky.” 

He nods, hearing the dismissal all too clear. He hopes she doesn’t change her mind, shut him out, go cold. Maybe it would serve him right - he’d done his fair share of that in high school, but he really likes her. He’s never felt like this, exactly, before. 

“Okay,” he says. “Goodnight.”

She holds the blanket a little tighter, but does give him that smile, the crooked one. 

“Night,” she says. 

He closes the door so carefully, so quietly, but it doesn’t matter because when he gets to the stairs, Phoebe is sitting on them eating another brownie, lit dimly only by a lamp burning on a table in the living room. 

“Not her boyfriend, my ass,” she says, chewing.

“You should cut her some slack,” he says, echoing the order Gretchen had given them earlier. “She’s had a really hard year. She could use a little kindness from you.” 

It’s the most polite way he could manage to tell Phoebe to back off. More effective than name calling or accusations. The cruelness is in the truth of it. He can see it on her face, anyway, as he climbs the stairs past her. The flinch of guilt. 

It’s hard to sleep. It’s not the bed or the place. He’s just worried about the morning, worried about Kathryn - he can call her that now, right? - downstairs, stewing over her choices. 

He spends about four hours rolling over in the bed before he gives up and just gets dressed. There’s still a couple more hours until the sun comes up, but maybe downstairs he can sit and read something with a cup of hot tea while the Janeway women sleep.

He takes care on the stairs again, stepping lightly to avoid creaking. When he gets to the bottom, he sees that the office door is open and the rumpled bed is empty. He feels a frisson of pleasure looking at it, thinking about what they’d done. Kathryn Janeway is smart and beautiful, he sees how his father had become enamored with her, keen on staying in her orbit. 

He finds her on the sofa in a pair of dark green pajamas, her hair piled messily up on her head. She’s got a mug of something next to her and she’s reading next to that dim lamp, the PADD reflecting back on her, lighting up her face.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admits when she looks up at him. 

She gets up and walks over to the window, pulls the drapes aside to peer out. 

“We could make it back to the transport station, probably,” she says. “Sneak out before anyone wakes up.”

“Won’t that offend your mother?” he asks. 

She shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll leave a note.” 

“You don’t want to wait for the sun?” he says. 

“Come on,” she says. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Wow, challenge accepted,” he says. “Go get dressed. Although those pajamas are very cute.”

“Thank you,” she says a little primly, like she’s not used to accepting compliments. She disappears into the office, comes back out in yesterday’s clothes. Keeps the messy bun atop her head. She doesn’t have any makeup on, she looks much more her age. Young and carefree, the Lieutenant Commander tucked away, for the moment. 

Kathryn records a quick note for her mother on the console and leaves it blinking. They put on their boots, their borrowed coats. She replicates them some gloves and they creep out into the flat gray almost morning. It’s colder than it was the night before and it’s brisk, shocking as he steps out into it. Still, it’s a more comfortable walk than wet snow slapping his face.

They get out of the view of the house before she says, “Tom?”

He braces for the worst. Here’s how today is going to go - she’s going to tell him they can’t ever do this again, that they can’t be romantic, that they need to go back to how it was and he’s going to have to work for her while he’s in love with her and heartbroken. If he even gets to work at all. Because after she dumps him, he’s pretty sure Starfleet is going to dump him too and he’ll have to crawl back to his parent’s house, what’s left of his life just ashes. 

“I’ve been thinking about it all night, thinking about you and-”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to say it,” he interjects.

“I decided I don’t regret it,” she finishes, over him. They both stop, look at one another. 

“Oh,” he says. “I thought you were going to tell me something else.”

“I _should_ tell you something else,” she acknowledges. “But I just can’t.” She starts walking again and he does too. “I had a really good time.”

“Me too,” he says. 

“It’s just been a weird year for me,” she says. “And I was so upset yesterday but maybe medical was right not to clear me. I never sleep, I have nightmares all the time. The only good thing in my life right now is you and I just can’t see how giving that up is going to help things.” 

“You can always talk to me too, you know,” he says. “About the Cardassians or whatever.”

She nods. “I know. I’ll start with the counselor this time. Maybe if I actually… talk to them, do the work, they’ll clear me faster. Instead of me just trying to convince them I’m fine.”

“Seems like a good idea,” he agrees. “What will you tell them about you and me?”

She pauses for a bit before she says, “Nothing.”

Behind her, dull through the cloudy sky, he can see the sun just starting to rise.


	4. i'm a shepherd for you and i will guide you through

_Oh baby, can't you see_  
_It's shinin' just for you_  
_Loneliness is over_  
_Dark days are through_

**Everlasting Light \- Diamond Thug (Cover)**

*

Kathryn thinks she’ll sleep better in her own bed, maybe she can catch a few hours before she heads back to Starfleet Medical. She wants to check on her father and she has her first on-leave appointment today. She invites Tom up so he doesn’t have to go back to his father’s house. He can take a shower, replicate a uniform. He can sleep, too, if he wants to. 

He won’t shower first, no matter how she insists. So she goes first, uses the quick cycle, comes into her bedroom in her robe. 

He’s sitting on her bed in just his boxer shorts, a fresh uniform folded next to him. 

“Go ahead,” she says, resisting the urge to just plop herself down on his lap. He nods, rises and walks past her, touching her shoulder briefly. She relocates the uniform to the top of her set of drawers. She drops the robe, climbs naked into her bed. 

When he comes back out, he still has his shorts on - she can tell though, that he’d worn them in the shower. It’s a very exhausted cadet move to just wear underwear into the sonic shower to get another days wear out of them. She scoots over a little, an invitation for him to join her.

He crawls in next to her, rolls up against her, says nothing about the bare skin he encounters. Just kisses her shoulder and gives her a squeeze. 

She wakes up a few hours later, she can tell by the light. She rolls over to face Tom who is asleep. His cheeks flushed, his eyelashes blonde. She wonders if he’ll wake up and make love to her one more time. She reaches for him under the blanket, touches his hip. 

It doesn’t take long to get him interested. As soon as she sees him open her eyes, she slips her hand under the waist of his underwear and finds him more than hard. 

His breath catches as she strokes him up and down. After a while, she eases him out and he lifts his hips, pushes his underwear down just enough. She pulls back the blanket and swings her knee over him in one fluid motion. 

Guides him into her and sinks down. 

Because once certainly won’t be enough but maybe, if they have to go back to how things were before, just maybe she can survive on the memories of twice. 

oooo

Kathryn goes to Starfleet Medical, Tom to his appointment. His father is there waiting for him in the lobby, looking stern, and smug, and mean. 

“You didn’t come home,” he says. “Your mother worried.”

“She didn’t contact me,” he says. 

“We looked up your comm badge,” he says. “You were at Kathryn Janeway’s house.”

“I was at Gretchen Janeway’s house. _She_ invited me to dinner and there was a weather alert,” Tom says. “Check the logs. Anyway, what are you doing here?”

“I was the ranking officer on the mission,” his father says which is not an answer nor an explanation. 

“I don’t want you to come in with me,” Tom says. 

“We’ll talk about Janeway later.”

“No, we won’t,” Tom replies. Turns and walks inside. 

His probation panel is made up of two Captains and a Commander. The ranking officer is Captain Daniela Talefero and she doesn’t waste any time. He reminds her of his grandmother, her no nonsense updo but kind brown eyes. 

“We reviewed your file as well as the mission reports,” she says. “Everyone involved said you acted admirably, were quick and courageous. The panel was impressed with your conduct as well.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Tom says. 

“The only person who suggested we extend your probation was the ranking officer of the mission, but since that’s your father, we’re going to disregard the suggestion as a conflict of interest.”

“You are?” Tom asks. 

Captain Talefero nods. “It was a conflict of interest for you to even be put on that mission by your own father in the first place and this panel will recommend that Vice Admiral Paris not be allowed to interfere with your career moving forward.”

“That would be… thank you,” Tom says. 

“Ensign Paris, you are hereby cleared of your probation and all your rights and privileges of rank are fully restored. Congratulations. Keep up the good work,” she says. “You’re dismissed.”

His father isn’t in the lobby when he gets out. He steps out into the daylight, mottled as it is between clouds and the last of the fog. While it was snowing in Indiana, here in California he can already see signs of spring. Things are turning green again. 

He’s not sure what to do first, if he should go to his father’s office to gloat, if he should go back to Medical to check on Kathryn, if he should go to work. They hadn’t told him to report to his duty station so he’s sure he has at least the day. It feels like a long time ago, sitting in that pizzeria, telling Kathryn that he’d stick out the duty assignment but he still thinks he should. Just because he’s off probation now doesn’t mean he gets infinite chances to screw up anew. 

He needs to do well at this, at Starfleet, at for the first time he really wants to because he can do it without the spectre of his father always looming over him. He expected to finish out his probation. He thought maybe they’d just dismiss him from Starfleet entirely. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine his freedom would come with a note in his file that his father is overbearing.

He decides his first stop is to go and requisition a living space. He doesn’t care if it’s the size of a closet, he doesn’t care if the toilet is in the kitchen and he has to sleep on the floor. He doesn’t care if the commute is a transport plus a tram ride. He is moving out, hopefully today. 

And what they give him is small, a studio unit in ‘fleet housing in Oakland, not even in San Francisco proper but he doesn’t care at all. It’s available and it’s his. 

His next stop is Medical to see if Kathryn is there. She’s not, but her mother and sister are. 

“Tommy,” Gretchen says, hugging him on sight. “He woke up! Edward woke up! And you know what else?”

“What?” he asks, grinning.

Gretchen beams. “He said my name!”

Kathryn, it turns out, is at her counseling session, but Tom knows that her mother will let her know he stopped by.

He goes to his parents' house because he knows his father is at work. His mother is home, pruning back hedges with thick gloves on. The beam from the trimmer is narrow and bright, slicing through the growth easily, like a hot knife through butter. 

She pushes her hair back from her face when she sees him come up the walk.

“All right, then, son?” she asks.

“All right,” he says. “I just came to get my stuff.”

“Ah,” she says. “Well. Good news then, for you.” 

He kisses her cheek. “Love you.”

He fits everything in one container, leaves most things behind. He takes a few items of clothes, his baseball mitt, a few trinkets. Kisses his mother again, and walks back to the transport station. He leaves his bike behind, for now. He shows the address to the transport chief and they figure out his best Oakland station. The apartment is about six blocks from where he materializes, a little bit of a walk, but not bad and it is already programmed for his entry. The unit is little - barely a double bed. The toilet isn’t in the kitchen, but that’s because there isn’t a kitchen, just a small replicator next to a window that looks out onto another tall building. 

He takes his console out of his container, puts it on the little coffee table, puts his clothes away in the small closet, makes up the bed. 

Just three more months of this assignment and maybe he can get an assignment where he flies.

Maybe today's amazing luck will stick with him, and he and Kathryn can get assigned to the same ship.

But he tries not to think about that too hard. It’s so unlikely, he shouldn’t get his hopes up. She might not even want that at all. He’s barely an ensign and she’s a Lieutenant Commander. At any rate, he’d be happy enough flying cargo to Jupiter and back if it meant being at the conn.

He sends Kathryn a message with his new address and the news that he’s off probation.

She hasn’t messaged him back by the time he goes to bed.

In the morning, he goes to work. He’s on regular duty so he resumes his regular duty assignment. The only person in the office when he arrives is Cadet Oyinlola, sitting with a mug of tea, scrolling through the communications that had come through the office in the night. 

“Ensign Paris!” she says. “We weren’t sure when you’d be back!”

“Today,” he says. 

“Well, welcome,” she says. “Will Commander Janeway be returning today as well?”

“No,” he says. “Not for a few weeks or so. She’s dealing with some personal matters.”

Dayo lowers her voice. “We heard about her dad. Is he going to be okay?”

“They think so,” Tom says. “But it’s not my place to discuss.”

“Of course not, sir,” Dayo says, sitting up straight. “I apologize.” 

“It’s fine,” Tom says. “What did I miss here?”

“Not much,” she says. “With the other Commanders covering Commander Janeway’s class schedule, it’s been quiet around here. Commander Prisu will be happy you’re back.”

“Her version of it, anyway,” Tom says. “Speaking of, I’ll go set up the lab. Best to start off on the right foot.”

“Nice to have you back, sir,” she says.

He turns on the lab lights, does a visual survey of the space. Jetic’s workspace is organized chaos, as usual, Prisu’s is pristine. He logs into the system and the panel displays a scrolling record of the work done since he’d last logged in. It’s not as much as he’d expected, but then Prisu had been teaching, so maybe she simply hadn’t had the time. Most of the revisions had been analysis of the mission data and very little actual work on changing schematics. 

There’s a simulation of what the Neshaki’i ships would have seen - he runs it and watches a mere shimmer on the sensors turn into a trackable signature as the two shuttles came together and lost power. Right as they made it into the cargo bay of the _Pankhurst_ did he finally get a clear signature.

“Most impressive flying, Ensign,” Prisu says. He looks over his shoulder to see her just inside the door to the lab. “I did not get a chance to tell you before now.”

“Thank you,” he says. 

“I see that you were allowed to keep your commission,” she says.

“Yes,” he says. “I am eager to return to regular work.” 

“Are you?” she asks, her eyebrow rising. “You plan to continue with this posting?”

“Of course,” he says. “Just because they didn’t fire me, doesn’t mean I’m just going to cut and run.”

She nods. “Very well. I must go teach. Continue to familiarize yourself with what you have missed and we will resume our work.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

He works for another hour and then he can’t stand it. He opens a comm line and calls Kathryn. He just… wants to make sure she’s okay. The computer relays that there is no response at her living unit and that he can either record or message or forward the call to her comm badge. 

He sighs, declines to do either. 

At lunch, he replicates a hot dog and then eats it on a walk, desperate to get out of the dim lab for a few minutes. He doesn’t mean to walk any particular way, but he finds himself right near the transport station and the line isn’t even long. Two people ahead of him.

“Where to?” the chief asks, when it’s his turn to step onto the pad.

“Starfleet Medical,” he says. 

This time, the only Janeway in the waiting room is Phoebe. He almost turns around but she looks up, sees him through the clear glass. 

“Mom is with Dad,” Phoebe says. 

“He still doing good?” Tom asks. He doesn’t sit down, he’s not interested in making this a long visit, nor does he have the time to linger. 

“Yep,” Phoebe says. 

“And your sister…?” Tom asks. 

“Your not-girlfriend just stepped out to get some coffee,” Phoebe says. 

“There’s a replicator in here,” he says.

“I think ‘coffee’ was a euphemism for time away from her sister,” Phoebe says. “There a mess hall two levels down.”

“Thank you,” Tom says.

“Don’t mention it,” she says, looking down at the PADD in her lap. 

There’s a fair amount of people in the mess, but he spots her right away sitting at a small table next to the window. He winds his way through the tables and gets right up next to her - she’s looking out the window, lost in thought.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks. 

She startles, hand to her neck. “Oh, for goodness’ sake!”

“Sorry,” he says. But he sits down. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I’m just hiding from Phoebe,” she admits.

“I know, that’s what she told me,” he grins. “How you doing, you okay?”

“Yes,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“Did you… I sent you a message last night,” he says.

“I saw, you got a new assignment,” she says. “That’s wonderful. What’s the posting?”

“Posting?” he says. “No, not a duty assignment. A housing assignment! I moved out of my father’s house, that’s all.”

“Oh!”

“You thought I just… I wouldn’t do that!” he says. “I wouldn’t take off like that!” 

She covers her face with her hands for a minute and then looks up, embarrassed. “I just… misunderstood.”

“No wonder you didn’t call me back,” he says. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just was… I wouldn’t blame you, I was just a little hurt.” 

He wants to reach across the table and take her hand, but he doesn’t. “I’m not going anywhere until the end of the academic year, I told you that.”

She nods. “Okay.”

“Did you get to see your dad?” he asks. 

She nods. “And I talked to his doctor. They think he’ll make a full recovery, but whatever the Neshaki’i did permanently altered his brain.”

“What does that mean?” Tom asks. 

“They aren’t sure,” she says. “But his brain is functioning at a higher percentage than a normal human. They said it might change his personality, it might make him smarter or more perceptive, or we might not notice any difference at all.”

“I wonder if they had to do that to make information more accessible to them,” he says. “The Neshaki’i.”

“I wonder what they got out of him,” Kathryn counters. “We haven’t talked much about his experiences yet, he’s not up to that.”

She’s so beautiful, it’s hard not to see her now while picturing her flushed with pleasure, perched on top of him. Her hair cascading around her shoulders, freckles across her nose and shoulders. 

He clears his throat, feels like an asshole for thinking of her that way while she’s talking about her father’s recovery. “Do you think we’ll ever know what Starfleet really wanted out of that diplomatic mission?”

“No,” she says, sullenly. “But I’m sure this whole exercise was for nothing. Starfleet gets nothing; in fact, they’ve lost so much more than they gained. I’m sure every security code has to be changed, the fleet moved around, the whole shebang.” 

“But you got your dad back,” Tom says. 

“We think,” she says.

“I hate to say it, but I have to go back to work,” he says. “Will you… can I see you tonight?”

She leans back, sighs. “Tom, now that you’re back on duty, we really shouldn’t keep seeing each other socially.”

“I don’t want to see you socially, I want to see you privately.”

“We shouldn’t,” she reiterates.

“I know,” he says. “But we’re going to.”

She presses her lips together, closes her eyes. 

“I really like you,” he says. “Kathryn, I... “

“Okay,” she says, looking at him. “Not here. Come over later. After your shift.”

He nods. “I can live with that.” 

Jetic is in the office when he returns. 

“Welcome back!” Jetic says. 

“Thank you, Commander,” he says. 

“I heard your mission was harrowing, but you look happy enough,” Jetic says. “All in one piece and smiling.” 

“Just having a good day, that’s all,” he says. “Racketball tomorrow?”

“You’re on,” Jetic says.

oooo

She knows, absolutely and unequivacally, that she needs to stop having sex with Tom Paris, yet when he chimes at her door, the firs thing she does is kiss him. Divest him of his shirt, rub herself against him, push him down onto her sofa, crawl into his lap. 

“Fuck,” she hisses as he slides into her. The burn is so good.

She’s never been the kind of woman to pounce on someone the moment they walked in, to stain her sofa, to do something she knows she absolutely shouldn’t be doing. It’s like those long days and eternal nights in that Cardassian prison had made her consider her life deeply. Her greatest fear had once been disappointing Owen Paris and now that she’s done it and lived, why shouldn’t she fuck his son on her sofa?

She knows why, though. She lifts her hips, sinks back down. Tom has his mouth on her breast, his hand in her hair. They shouldn’t see each other because it’s likely to blow up in their face. Damage her career, end his. He’s already on a short leash, he already has a history. Why is she putting him into more danger?

“We need to break up,” she says, with a groan. 

“We’re not dating,” he manages, his hips still moving. “This is something else.” 

“Yeah,” she sighs. “But this is wrong.” 

Tom hisses when she clenches her muscles down on him. “Kath-” 

Whatever he wants to say out of that must fall out of his brain because he doesn’t keep going. She grinds down on him, moving fast, falls forward until they’re close enough to kiss. She knows he’s close because he starts gripping her waist harder and then he tears his mouth away at the same time he buckles beneath her, groaning and jerking. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Sorry.” 

“No need,” she reassures him, pushing his sweaty blonde hair back from his forehead. 

He lets his head fall back on the sofa, breathing heavily, but he reaches for her, rubs at her even as he softens inside of her. 

By the time she comes, he’s already hard again.

“Youth,” she marvels. 

“Ain’t it grand,” he agrees.

“But after this, we’re breaking up,” she warns him.

He leans in to kiss her. “No, we’re not.” 

oooo

Kathryn doesn’t talk about her therapy much, but she does seem to be sleeping better. He knows this because he sleeps at her apartment sometimes. She has been over to his once, mostly just to see it but the bed is really too small to share so he doesn’t invite her to stay. Her apartment is bigger, though not by much, and nicer. 

They’ve come to an agreement that when she returns to active duty, they’ll stop sleeping together and seeing each other out of work. On the one hand, the damage is done. He’s already in love with her. But falling into something while they aren’t on active duty is one thing - sleeping together while working together is another can of worms entirely. That would be just stupid. 

She has her last counseling appointment today and she expects to be cleared.

He is going to meet her after work for Vulcan-Thai fusion at their favorite little spot. 

She’s hard to read when he comes in. She’s sitting at a table with a glass of water, perusing a menu that she knows by heart. 

When she looks up at him, she smiles but her eyes are rimmed red.

“Shit,” he says. “They didn’t clear you?”

“No,” she says. “They did.”

“Oh,” he says. “Was it a hard session?”

“It was fine,” she says.

He slips into his seat. “So these tears are about…?”

“We can’t see each other anymore Tom, we just can’t,” she says, her eyes brimming again. 

“Well, obviously, but what is it, seven weeks until we have to reassign?” he asks. “That’s not that long.” 

“And then what?” she asks, wiping her face. “What if I want to sign on to this position for another three years? You need to take a position where you can fly.” 

He wrinkles his brow. “Do you want to keep teaching?” 

“Well, no, but-”

“I know we haven’t talked about it, but mostly that’s because you’re always trying to dump me,” he says.

“This isn’t a joke!”

“I’m not joking,” he says. “I figured we could… I don’t know, file the form, find a posting to jointly apply to.” 

“That’s not fair to you,” she says. “There’s far more opportunities for your position and rank than there will be for me.”

“I can fly anything,” he says. “Whatever ship you’re on. I don’t care what it is.”

“And we’ll still be in the same chain of command-”

“You’re acting like no couple has ever faced this before,” he says. “You’re always going to outrank me! And you absolutely should. So…”

She dabs at her face with her napkin. 

“So this isn’t about finding the right duty assignment,” he concludes. “You just actually want to break up with me.” He has that feeling, that bad feeling now, like someone is about to gut him with something very sharp. 

“That’s not true!” she says. “But I don’t want you to change your whole life around just to accommodate me.”

He rubs his face. “That’s so stupid.” 

“Why is it stupid?” she says. “Do you want a whole life and career just following me around?”

“Yes!” he says. “That’s what happens when you fall in love! You want to be with that person, no matter what! I want to follow you, Kathryn. To the end of the universe, I would follow you. I’ve never been in love before, not really. Not like this. I’d scrub the hull for you. I’d never fly again.” 

She’s crying again, crying still, whatever, tears spilling down her red cheeks. “Oh,” she says, softly.

“So if you aren’t in love with me, then now would be the time to say it so I can just sweep up my dignity and be on my way,” he says.

“I do,” she says. “Tom, I do.”

“You do what?” he says. She could at least _say_ it. His heart is on the table, exposed, vulnerable.

“I love you,” she says. 

“See?” he says, triumphantly. He picks up the menu. “Piece of cake.” Orders the same two things they always get. 

“What is Admiral Paris going to say when he realizes we’re… dating?” she asks. 

“Who cares?” he asks. “My mother thought he was in love with you, you know? She’ll be relieved, I think.”

“What?” she says. “That’s not true!”

“Infatuated, then,” Tom says. “I can see it’s one-sided but… he’s going to be mad.”

She gawkes at him.

“What, you’re very easy to fall for,” he says. 

“I… thank you,” she says. 

“I’m glad we met how we did, though,” he muses. “Imagine if we met on a starship, on some years long assignment. I just would have had to pine for you forever.”

“I’ve been looking at assignments,” she says. “I have been seriously considering making the jump to the command track.” 

“You should,” he agrees. 

“If I take a bridge position and you have a bridge position, then-”

“Then I’ll work the gamma shift,” he says. “Don’t worry about things before they arrive.” 

“What if I make Captain one day?” she says, ignoring him. “There’s _no_ way around that!” 

“I’ll start calling you ma’am in bed, that’s all,” he says. 

“Oh, you do that anyway,” she replies. 

The waitress is coming with their food. He grins at Kathryn as the woman sets it between them. When she leaves, he picks up his glass of water. “To not breaking up,” he says. “Ever.”

She glares at him, but she does clink her glass to his and take a drink.

oooo

It’s a long, lonely seven weeks. It’s not difficult to be professional in the office during the day. Mostly she’s out teaching her classes or taking meetings and he’s working in the lab with Prisu. He and Prisu go back to the fleet yards again to try their hand at installing their shielding on another Miranda-class ship coming off the line. It’s much more successful the second time around. 

But at night, it’s tough and she misses him and she second guesses herself. They do talk, a little. He sends her potential assignments and they do have to discuss the merit of the postings. 

In her last week of the assignment, she gets an HQ communication asking if she wishes to extend her assignment and she responds no, at least sure about that. It frees her up in the system and almost immediately, her inbox starts pinging with inquiries. Other departments at the Academy, Admiral Shahzad at headquarters, the Captain of a deep space science vessel, on its way back to Earth for refurbishment and crew R and R. They all basically say the same thing - that she’s encouraged to apply for an available position. 

She looks up the jobs and two aren’t even in the system yet for her to apply to - she’s getting an inside scoop.

Nothing sounds like exactly the right fit and everyone might rescind those offers once they learn that she and an ensign are a package deal. It would be so much easier if they were the same rank, like she and Justin had been. But she knows now that she wasn’t in love with Justin. She liked him, she even liked sleeping with him, but she wasn’t in love. Sometimes he scared her. They started dating because it made sense and was convenient and they had survived a scary situation together.

It’s good they never got engaged, let alone married. 

And then later in the day, a message from Captain Elson on the _Billings_. She’s surprised, it’s been a whole year. But Captain Elson’s note is friendly, encourages her to apply for a posting. She says, “We still have space for you.” 

It could be like this whole year never happened, as far as her career is concerned. 

She writes back, expressing interest, asking about any other postings, specifically for a low ranking pilot with medical training. 

She can, of course, look up any official vacant postings, but asking this way is an under the table way of letting Captain Elson know that to get her, they need to bring someone else along. Perhaps she’ll assume that she just wants to bring along her pet Ensign and it won’t be until after they accept a posting that they have to submit the relationship declaration form. 

She’s never asked for something like that before, but if she’s going to switch to Command track, she needs to start asking for what she wants. 

She doesn’t mention it to Tom until she hears from Captain Elson again, two days later. She calls, a real time communication that Kathryn happens to catch between classes. They’re in finals now, so mostly she’s proctoring exams, not lecturing, and it makes the days feel longer but they’re actually shorter. 

She answers the call. 

“Commander Janeway!” Captain Elson says. “In the flesh!”

“So to speak,” she says. “You must be nearby, Captain.”

“We just docked at Jupiter Station,” she says. “The crew is excited to be home for a couple of weeks.”

“I imagine so,” Kathryn says. 

“So,” Captain Elson says. “I got your response.”

“Yes,” Kathryn says. “I figured all I could do was ask.”

“Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have space for an ensign at this time,” Captain Elson says. 

“Ah,” Kathryn acknowledges, feeling a pang of disappointment even though she’d swore to herself she wouldn’t. “Well thank you for letting me know.”

“The _Billings_ has a sister ship, though, the _Bozeman_ ,” Elson says. “Another Sovereign-class that came off the line the same year. Do you know Captain Vorobyev?”

“No,” Kathryn says. “Wait, yes. I saw her speak when I was a cadet. About warp field configurations, I think. She was a Commander then.” 

“She’s commanding the _Bozeman_ , now,” Elson says. “They have similar directive to us, which is to carry out specific orders when the need arises, but otherwise they spend their time on scientific endeavors.”

“I see.”

“I talked to her,” Elson says. “She said she was willing to take on two for one if the one was you.” 

“That’s flattering,” Kathryn says. “Truly. Thank you.”

“My loss, her gain,” Elson says. “I’ll tell her to contact you. Elson out.” 

Kathryn stares at the Starfleet insignia on the screen, chews her lip while she thinks the offer quickly through. She tries to remember more about that lecture she’d seen Vorobyev give - the woman had been slight, but stocky with pale skin and dark hair streaked with gray. While Captain Elson was in her forties, still young and somewhat vibrant, Captain Vorobyev was at least twenty years older and had seemed somewhat cold, rigid and analytical. 

A fine scientist, to be sure, but that doesn’t always make for a great Captain.

Still, she knows it’s the best offer their going to get, most likely. A decent ship assignment, time together. Kathryn will get to cut her command teeth, Tom will get to fly. 

She taps her badge. “Janeway to Paris.”

“ _Yes, Commander?_

“Could you come see me in my office for a moment?” she says.

“ _On my way._ ”

It only takes a minute for him to chime at her closed door. He makes sure it closes behind him. 

“Have a seat,” she says. He does so.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

“The _Billings_ reached out to me about taking the same assignment they offered from a year ago,” she says. “I spoke to Captain Elson today.”

“That’s great,” he says. “Do you think you’re ready to make the switch?”

“I do,” she says. “I asked about… well, they don’t have space to bring us both along.” 

“Ah,” he says. “Well… I…”

“No need to panic,” she says, kindly cutting off his fumbling effort to be nice to her while feeling sorry for himself. “I have no interest in accepting something that won’t take us both.” 

He brings his hand to his chest. “I was about to be very sad.”

“Captain Elson referred us to the _Bozeman_ instead,” she says. “Same ship, more or less.”

“Sisters,” he offers.

“Yes,” she says, helpless not to smile at him. He’s always right there with her, always on the same page about things. It’s refreshing and something she didn’t know she was missing, before. “Exactly.”

“But you have reservations,” he says. 

“It’s just, Captain Vorobyev is just not who I was-”

“Mel Vorobyev is captaining the _Bozeman_?” he asks. “That’s amazing! I hadn’t heard that. Good for her!”

“You know her?”

“Her daughter is my sister Moira’s best friend,” Tom says. “And her son is only a few years older than I am. She used to take me to the flight simulator when I was little and my dad was working. She’s like… well, nearly like family, I suppose.”

“Oh,” Kathryn says. “I’ve only seen her professionally, I just thought she might be…”

“Cold,” he says. “She’s just, ah, Russian. And everyone is different with their family than they are on the bridge of a ship.”

“True,” she says. “I forget that yours is the one family that is possibly more entrenched in Starfleet culture than mine.” 

“I think we’re pretty on par,” he says with a grin. “I’d go work for Melanya Vorobyev any time. If she’ll have us, that is.” 

She grins. “That’s a relief. I suppose we should disclose our-”

“Wait,” he says. “You can hint about it verbally, but don’t you think we ought to wait until the transfer is approved before we file the form? Otherwise it looks like we’ve been seeing each other while in the same chain of command.”

“We have,” she says softly.

He says, “Ehhh,” and scrunches up his face. “Gray area!” 

“Okay, okay, you need to get out of here,” she says. “I can’t look at you anymore.”

He winks at her.

“Ugh, that’s worse!” She misses him, wants him, it’s so much worse when they’re alone.

“Let me know if you need me to do anything,” he says. “Call me later?”

“Yes,” she says. “Dismissed, Ensign.”

“Thank you, Commander,” he says, letting the regulations settle over them both once more. 

It turns out the _Bozeman_ is too far out for a real time subspace call, but she does receive the same form letter from Captain Vorobyev inviting her and one member of her staff to apply for the vacancies on her ship. 

Kathryn has had their transfer requests filled out and ready for weeks now, and there’s nothing stopping her from sending them out now, except there’s one more thing she has to do.

Edward Janeway has been transferred out of his intensive care unit and is in a rehab facility now in Berkeley. He’ll be there until he’s on his feet again, until Gretchen can reasonably care for him on her own in a house without medical staff on hand day and night. She forgoes the transporter, takes the transit system instead so she has a little time to gather her thoughts after work. The rehab facility is only a few blocks from the station, but the blocks are mostly uphill so by the time she gets inside, she’s puffing a little. 

The woman at the front desk is familiar enough to recognize Kathryn right when she comes in.

“Little late for visitors, hon,” she says. 

“It’s an emergency,” she says only a little dryly. “Can you sneak me in?”

“Hmmm,” she says, and taps at the screens in front of her. She watches them for a second and then says, “He’s still awake.”

“Thank you,” Kathryn says. “I won’t be long.”

The woman issues her a pass, it comes out of a slot and Kathryn affixes it to her uniform.

“You know the way,” the woman says, waving her through.

Her father’s room isn’t luxurious, but it has everything he needs. He’s sitting up in an armchair listening to music, something classical but she doesn’t recognize the composer. When she comes in, knocking on the wall to get his attention, he looks at her and there’s a moment of blankness on his face that frightens her. But then he smiles, lights up. “Katie!”

“Hi daddy,” she says with a smile. “Can I come in?”

“Please,” he says, standing and moving toward the straight back chair that sits at his meal table. 

“I can get it,” she says.

“No, it’s good for me,” he promises. His walking looks better, less jerky. His hair has grown out too, now purely white where there’d been at least a little of his original color, before. He looks okay, but there are still neurological issues. Gaps, odd reactions to things. He can still do complex mathematics but struggles to button his own shirt.

He remembers very little about his missing year. He remembers negotiations going poorly and then waking up in Starfleet Medical. 

She sits in the chair he’s arranged for her. He sits in his armchair. He has on pajamas and a robe.

“You look good, daddy,” she says. 

“You too,” he says. “Are you sleeping better yet?”

She cocks her head. “Who told you I wasn’t sleeping well?”

“No one,” he says. “You just seemed tired all the time.”

“I am,” she says. “It was… rough, for a little while. I was worried about you.”

“You weren’t having nightmares about me,” he says. 

“Still.”

“What brings you by this evening?” he asks. “Something on your mind?”

“Well,” she says. “As a matter of fact, it’s time for me to take a new assignment.”

“Is it?” he asks. “You don’t find droning on to first year cadets about astrophysics stimulating?”

“Listen old man,” she says. “Make fun of me all you want, but I think this year, while boring, was good for me! I needed to… get back to a healthier place. And my counselor agreed.”

“They have counselors on ships. You would have been fine,” he says. “I wouldn’t have let you take a lazy assignment.”

“You weren’t here,” she snaps. Then she regrets it. Her father isn’t usually so aggressive, but again, he’s not himself. She should be kinder. “It doesn’t matter.”

He stares her down. 

“I’ve been offered a command position on the _USS Bozeman_ ,” she says. “I’m going to accept it.” 

He nods. “Good.”

“I did miss talking things like this over with you,” she says. “You’re my best resource, daddy.”

He smiles at her, reaches out and touches her knee. 

“I worry about leaving you and mom when you’re still not 100 percent,” she says.

“I’m fine,” he assures her. “Nothing your mother can’t handle.”

“Okay,” she says.

“They say maybe next week they might discharge me,” he says. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says. “We can have one last family dinner, at least. Before I go away.” 

“Yes,” he says. “You, me. Phoebe and mom. Oh, and Tommy Paris.”

She stills. “What?”

“Mom says you two have been thick as thieves,” he says. “Bring him around, too, why don’t you?”

“If he’s available, of course,” she says.

Her father chuckles. “I think he’ll be available for you, sugar.” 

“I hate this new, perceptive you,” she says.

“It’s not me,” he promises. “Mom told me.”

“Yeah?” she asks. “Who told mom?”

He chuckles. “Mom just knows.”

oooo

Bloomington is much improved since the last time he visited. There’s no soggy snow, no ice, no frigid wind. If anything, it’s humid and the trees are lush and green and the landscape sings with life - insects and rushing water and a breeze that keeps it from being too hot and too sticky.

They’ve finished the academic year and by finished, only just. Kathryn submitted her grades earlier in the day, cleaned out her office and taken the few personal items to her apartment. Tom didn’t really have anything to clean out since he’d only had a shared desk. He’d allowed Jetic and Prisu, who were staying on, to treat him to lunch. He’s grateful to them - they could have been much less welcoming of him, could have made the year very long. But they’d both given him the benefit of the doubt. He can’t say he’ll miss the job or even them, but he appreciates the time in his life that he’s known them. 

They ask him about the _Bozeman_. 

“Word gets around fast,” he’d laughed. 

“Commander Desaunti let us know that he approved your transfer earlier today,” Prisu says. “And Lieutenant Commander Janeway’s.”

Jetic grins. “Guess you two worked out your differences, eh?”

“It’s been a real pleasure working with you both,” he’d said, ignoring the ribbing. 

“And you, Ensign,” Prisu had said, but even she’d looked somewhat amused.

Tom arrives a few minutes before Kathryn on the transporter pad, so he hangs around outside the station. They have a week of leave before they take a transport ship to Deep Space three where the _Bozeman_ will pick them up, along with three other crewmen joining. He’s relieved about that - people will still talk about them when they realize that the new Lieutenant Commander is dating an Ensign, but having several new people at once will buffer them.

And anyway, he knows Kathryn. She’s not going to want to make a public display of anything. Their relationship will happen in quarters and behind the closed doors of a holodeck. 

Technically, their relationship can start right now. She’s no longer his immediate supervisor, they’re on leave. It’s a real shame, a _real_ shame that they have to spend the next several hours with her parents. He hasn’t even kissed her in weeks. He supposes if he can survive that, he can survive a few more hours. 

However, when she steps out of the station building, she’s not in her uniform. She’s in a little summer dress with thin straps and a short skirt that flares out at her hips. He groans internally. 

“Six times four is twenty-four,” he says.

She bursts out laughing, low and genuine.

“Couldn’t wear a uniform?” he asks. “Did you really want to crank up the torture for the last few hours?”

“I recycled my sciences uniforms,” she says. “But the specs for the command ones haven’t come in yet!”

“Oh right,” he says. “It will be weird to see you in red.”

“I’m sure it will be my color,” she says, directing them to the sidewalk. They go for about a block and then come upon a narrow alley. Their station is at the edge of the little town, near to where the university campus once sat. While the buildings have all been brought up to code, many of them are original limestone structures. It makes for an odd layout with narrow passageways between buildings, too big for a car but big enough for, say, a horse. A bicycle, or two people to walk shoulder to shoulder. 

“Come on,” he says, tugging her into it. 

“What?” she asks, looking around, but he backs himself up against the building and pulls her against him. “Oh, Tom,” she says. “This is only going to make dinner more difficult.”

“I don’t care,” he says, and kisses her. 

She’s right of course. It does make it worse. They reluctantly part, have to continue their walk. 

“We won’t stay long,” she promises, her voice husky. 

Maybe it won’t be so bad, anyway. Tom genuinely likes Kathryn’s mother, is looking forward to seeing the progress her father has made in his recovery. After all, the last time Tom saw Edward Janeway, he was naked and half dead in the back of a shuttle. 

Kathryn lets them in the front door this time since they don’t have to shuck so many layers and their shoes aren’t caked in mud and snow. 

“Mom!” she calls. “We’re here!” 

“Kitten!” calls Gretchen’s voice from the living room. 

Kathryn heads that way but stops abruptly, the smiling slipping off her face. “Oh,” she says. 

Tom finds Gretchen and Edward sitting in the arm chairs and on the sofa, his own parents. 

“Oh,” he echoes. 

“Your father invited the Parises over,” Gretchen says with a big, bright smile, the kind of plastered on smile he’s never seen her make, even when she was happiest at the hospital. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Isn’t that fun?”

“Hiya Tommy,” his mother says. 

“Hi,” he says. “Dad.”

“Son,” Owen says. “Kathryn.”

“Admiral,” she says. 

“Kitty cat, why don’t you go get you and Tom something to drink and then we can sit down together,” Gretchen says. 

Kathryn nods, goes around to kiss her father’s cheek and murmur a greeting before heading for the kitchen. Tom goes with her; he’s sure as hell not facing that firing squad alone. 

In the kitchen she stands in front of the replicator, but whispers softly to him, “What the fuck?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I honestly didn’t see that coming.” 

“Have you told them?” she demands, scrolling through the small display on the top of the replicator. She jams her finger into the word ‘cocktails’. 

“Oh sure, I always tell my parents when I sleep with my immediate supervisor,” he says. “Did you?”

“No!” she hisses. “I mean, I think they know. My mom… and dad is very perceptive now…”

“Kathryn!” 

“I didn’t tell them,” she says. 

“I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter if they know now,” he reasons. “Our transfers were put through. Mel - I mean, Captain Vorobyev knows.” 

“Kaite?” her father’s voice summons from the living room. 

Kathryn pushes another button and two drinks appear on the replicator pad. He doesn’t know what it is, he’s not even sure she was consciously choosing something and not just furiously scrolling through the menu in a confused panic. But he takes the drink and sips it - rum. He couldn’t say what else. Lime, maybe? It’s dark and sweet. 

There’s a small loveseat that matches the sofa, and they have a seat. Kathryn immediately sets her drink down on the side table, but Tom can’t reach a flat surface from where he’s sitting so he just holds his.

“The _Bozeman_ ,” Owen says, when no one picks up the conversation immediately. It’s not a question, he just says it and it hangs there, in the room.

“Yes,” Tom says, finally. “Three years.” 

“At least,” Kathryn says. 

“How often will you get leave?” Gretchen asks. 

“At least once a year,” Kathryn says. “I’m sorry you won’t see me as much as you saw me this year.”

“I knew that was temporary,” she says. 

“And dad is back now,” Kathryn says. 

Edward nods thoughtfully. “She’ll have to get used to me being around all the time now.”

“So it’s true then?” Owen says. “You’re officially retiring?”

“Unless you have another mission for me to go get my brain scooped out like a melon,” Edward says, his friendly tone and easy demeanor never wavering. 

Tom leans over and says, “Your dad is awesome,” to Kathryn. She just picks up her drink and takes a large swallow. 

“We were all following orders,” Owen says dismissively. 

“Are we to be fed?” Kathryn says loudly. “It was my understanding that we were coming for dinner.” 

“Of course,” her mother says but makes no move to get up.

“It was kind of Melanya to take you on,” Julia says quietly, to her son.

“Mom, it’s not-”

“Excuse me?” Kathryn says over him, loudly and pointedly. 

His mother shrinks back into the cushions, clearly surprised. “I-I-”

“If anything, she agreed to take _me_ on, and for the record, your son is not some problem child who needs constant charity to get by in life. Your son is a graduate of Starfleet Academy, a full ensign by his own merit, and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I only wonder would he might have achieved by now if instead of kicking him down all the time, the two of you had encouraged him!”

Even Owen is shocked into silence. That’s hard to do.

She sets down her cup hard so she can shake her finger at his parents.

“You don’t have children so that they can meet the expectations you have in your head, Admiral, you get the children you get and you love them and support them no matter what and you _don’t_ shame them when they like boats instead of starships or when they mess up and make it right. It’s bad enough that you punished me for passing on the _Billings_ when you’d promised Captain Elson your shining Lieutenant even though you had no right to do so, and you don’t get to take it out on him because he gets to sleep with your protégé and you don’t!” 

“Kath, that’s probably enough,” Tom says. Owen’s face is turning an unsightly red and his mother looks close to tears. 

Edward has his chin resting on his hand and his gazing at his daughter with pride, however. 

The Janeways really are awesome. 

She crosses her arms, leans back in a huff.

“Unbelievable,” she mutters to herself. 

“Well,” Edward says. “I guess we’ve all learned something today.”

“We can reschedule dinner,” Gretchen says. “For another time, perhaps, Julia. Owen.”

Owen stands up, glares at Tom, glowers at Janeway but ultimately decides to say nothing. Julia follows him to the door. 

Edward walks them out, his gait still a hint unsteady, but overall pretty good. Kathryn had mentioned before how stiffly he’d been walking. 

“Maybe you should think about retirement, too,” Tom hears Edward say. “Seems like the younger generation has it handled, after all.” 

Tom doesn’t hear his father’s reply to that. He reaches out, puts his hand on Kathryn’s knee.

“Okay,” Gretchen says. “Now I’ll feed you.” 

oooo

Kathryn doesn’t actually put on the uniform until the day they catch the transport ship to Deep Space Three. The newest iteration is basically the same as her last one, however the fabric is different. Suited for ships, not the surface. It wears the same, really. The only obvious difference is the color.

Tom meets her at the shipyards in Richmond where the transport will leave from. Even though they’ve done everything as above board as possible, it still feels wrong somehow to openly be together while on the surface. She just… wants to get onto to the _Bozeman_ without any funny business, to really meet Captain Vorobyev and get a feel for her command style before she relaxes at all. 

Then, hopefully, things can get back to normal. Or they can make a new normal. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen. She’s never been this serious about anyone before, she’s never started a relationship with a desire for it to last forever in a way that makes them plan so carefully right here at the start. She thinks that all of the hard things from the last year - the Cardassians, the boring job, falling out of favor with Owen Paris - all of it was worth it and necessary because it had led her to Tom. 

He’s waiting for her when she arrives. His hair is short, back to ship regulation. He smiles when he sees her.

“Lieutenant Commander Janeway,” he says. “You were right. Red is your color.”

It’s an overnight journey to DS3 and the other new members of the _Bozeman_ crew aren’t coming from Earth, like they are, so they can sleep in the same quarters. When they arrive, her assigned guest quarters are on another part of the station, not remotely close to the ones assigned to him. They decide to simply forego his. They look up the specs of the station and see that her assigned quarters for the night are 20 square meters larger, so that’s how they decide. It’s still roughly the size of a closet, it makes his utilitarian apartment in Oakland seem luxurious. 

This is life in space, after all. It’s Tom’s first long term space assignment. The longest he’d spent on a starship, he tells her that night, crammed into bed with her, is thirty days on the _Louisa_ , his father’s ship before the _Al-Batani_. Tom was on his summer break, still in grade school. His mother had been big on giving her children a well-rounded education. Moira had been out of the house by then. Kathleen, if he recalled correctly, had gone to an athletic camp that summer. Tom, the only child realistically headed for Starfleet, had gone to live with his father. 

“It was boring,” Tom says, sounding a little drowsy now. He can always sleep anywhere. Can start snoring the moment his head hits something remotely soft. “They were scouting stellar phenomena to update star charts. No one even shot at us.” 

She chuckles, her fingers clutching his. For pleasure, sure, but also to help her not fall off the bed. Tom is a good anchor for her. She had missed feeling attached to something - a ship, a family, another person, though she hadn’t realized what was missing until she’d gotten it back. 

“Most people think not being shot at is good,” she says.

“Not fourteen-year-old boys,” he says. “I spent most of that month doing extra school work assigned by my father, or on the holodeck.” 

“No need to tell me what fourteen-year-old boys do in the holodeck,” she says.

“An all around educational experience,” he says, pressing his mouth into the nape of her neck. 

She doesn’t sleep well. She thinks briefly of kicking him out to go to his own tiny broom closet in the wee hours, but it seems cruel. 

She’s used to running on little sleep, anywhere, shoring up her energy reserves with coffee, pushing through. That’s often life on a starship, anyway, and it’s time to get back into shape. 

In the morning, he finally goes and hunts down his own quarters so they can shower at the same time. The _Bozeman_ is set to rendezvous with them before lunch, so they won’t have a lot of waiting around to do. That’s a relief. She’s not great at waiting. 

They fill the morning hours with breakfast in the cafeteria - no replicators in their quarters, no place to set a plate, really. It’s fine. He obviously likes the hustle and bustle of the station. They walk the promenade to see the sights and walk off breakfast. The closer it gets to the rendezvous, the more fidgety and excited Tom gets. She keeps having to remind herself how green he is as an ensign, since he’d handled himself so well on their previous mission, how he seems wise beyond his years. 

“I’ve never flown anything as big as the _Bozeman_!” he chatters excitedly. “Except for on a simulator.” 

“Don’t expect Captain Vorobyev to favor you,” Kathryn warns after they’ve collected their things. They both have a bag on their shoulder and they’re heading for the transporters. “Just because she knows you. If anything, that means she’ll be harder on you.” 

“I don’t expect anyone to favor me,” he says. “Not even you, ma’am.”

She narrows her eyes at him and he just smiles. 

But when they transport over, Captain Vorobyev is there to greet them and she grins the moment they materialize. For as stern and stout looking as Kathryn kept picturing her, the woman in front of them has a sparkling smile and opens her arms in an enthusiastic greeting.

“Tommy Paris!” she says. 

He grins, all boyish charm. “Captain Vorobyev, it’s so wonderful to see you!” 

“One hug,” she says. “Our secret. You, me, Commander Janeway, and Ensign Patel who I know will never tell a soul.”

“No, ma’am,” the ensign says from behind the console. 

Kathryn watches Tom hug their captain with some surprise.

“Okay,” she says with a warm maternal smile when they part. “Captain only, now.” 

“Yes, sir,” he says. 

“And you, Commander Janeway,” Captain Vorobyev says. “Greta Elson was very bent out of shape to lose you to me. We have a little sibling rivalry, she and I. A pleasure to have you join the team.” 

The _Bozeman_ has a complement of around 400, is a mid-size ship in the Federation’s fleet. They’ll go out pretty far, but are not so deep space that they’re ever more than a few weeks from home. It’s a good assignment for both of them to cut their teeth on. Captain Vorobyev hands them off to her first officer, Commander Fergus, who shows them to their respective quarters and then gives them a brief tour. Kathryn is a bridge officer for the mid-shift, Tom a conn ensign for the morning shift. This is surprising, since there can be some overlap there, but they say nothing.

Then, Commander Fergus returns them to Captain Vorobyev, leaving them at the door to her ready room. 

“Enjoy your tour?” she asks.

“Yes, sir,” Kathryn says.

“Good, good. Sit down, please, both of you. I want to go over some expectations.”

It’s not as bad as Kathryn expects it to be. Years of working for Owen Paris have conditioned her to always be clawing for the top, to be the best and nothing less than that. But facing him was always terrifying, even if she’d thought she’d done well. Would he be disappointed? Would it all be enough? She’d been so scared, once, of letting him down. Now, having lived through it, she has come out stronger. But it’s still difficult not to be nervous when faced with her Captain.

Vorobyev just goes over the fraternization policies with them. They’re in different departments on different shifts. Kathryn will have bridge shifts, but will also have an office on another deck. Tom will primarily work the conn, but will also fly shuttles for away missions, which happen often. 

“I know I can trust you to leave the orders to his superiors,” Vorobyev says to Kathryn.

“Yes, ma’am,” she says.

“And you, Ensign Paris, if she does have to give you an order, I trust you to follow it,” she says.

“Yes, Captain.”

“I know you won’t let me down,” Vorobyev says, pointedly. 

Anyway, It’s a big crew, it takes several months before people cotton on that they’re together, and then it’s an uncomfortable two weeks of gossip and Kathryn mostly sleeping in her own quarters and then something else happens and people move on to gossiping about that. They stay old news because they aren’t very interesting. They don’t fight, they don’t talk about one another to outside people. People see them together in their off hours, but it’s always doing mundane things like eating dinner or walking out of the holodeck.

For her birthday in May, Tom makes a holodeck program of his favorite Italian restaurant, the one he’d never gotten around to taking her to, so they can share a meal. He’d made sure to download their menu replicator file and bring it with him, so the food would be as close to the real thing as possible.

“I’ll still take you here one day,” he promises her over flickering photonic candlelight.

“I know,” she says. 

She hadn’t known he was so good at writing holocode. She should have. It’s a parallel skill set to flight simulations, which he’s excellent at. In fact, he’s really thriving in his role on the _Bozeman_ and she’s beginning to think he’s going to beat her to the next promotion. She’ll have to take the bridge officer’s test, anyway, to hit Commander, and while she’s technically considered a bridge officer in this role, the bridge is never left in her command and to be a full Commander, she’ll need it under her belt. It comes with a whole slew of tests and comps that she’s not sure she’s ready for anyway. Maybe in a couple years. 

But the jump from Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade is easy and he deserves it.

“Where do you think you’d be?” she asks, curious now. “If we hadn’t met?”

“Nowhere good,” he replies.

“I’m serious.”

“Me too,” he says. “Would I have even made it through that probation if I hadn’t had you to impress?”

“I think you would have,” she says. 

“I think I would have gotten dismissed,” he says. 

“And then what?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know?” he says. “Gone to live on a beach somewhere? Joined the Maquis?”

“Really?” she asks, slightly scandalized.

“If they would have let me fly? Sure,” he says. 

“I guess we can never truly know, though,” she says, resting her chin on her hand.

“I guess not,” he agrees. “And who cares. I love my life. And I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says, and it’s not a rote reply to something he tells her all the time, though he does. She really does love him. “And my present.”

“Good, it took forever,” he says.

“What will you make me next?” she wonders.

He just groans.

oooo

It takes three and a half years on the _Bozeman_ before Kathryn feels ready to try for Commander, though Tom starts pushing her to do it around two years. Captain Vorobyev seems surprised that they both decide to stay on for another year.

“You’re a Lieutenant, now, Tommy,” she reminds him. She only calls him Tommy when they’re off duty and alone. Sometimes she has him to her quarters for tea. “You’ll excel faster if you take another assignment.”

“I don’t care that much about rank,” he says. “I care about Kathryn.” 

Captain Vorobyev is ultimately happy to keep them and happy to support Kathryn when she does decide to go for it at the end of their fourth year, but when she passes (Tom never doubted that she would pass on the first try), it basically puts a clock on their time on the _Bozeman_ because it means that she’s outgrown her job and there’s not room for her to move into a new one. 

They end up moving to the _USS Ironwood_ , though she goes before him and he has to wait four months and it’s the most miserable four months of his life. He mopes around, haunting the halls, bored and lonely.

“Pull it together, Tommy,” Vorobyev says during one of their last cups of tea together. “You’re making the whole crew sad. Your little face is tanking morale.” 

Three years on the _Ironwood_. It’s a smaller crew, a less exciting assignment, but after nine months, Kathryn gets promoted to first officer and by the end of their time on that ship, Tom is a full Lieutenant.

Anyone can see that Kathryn is on some kind of fast track, that the year she spent teaching at the Academy never held her back, only made her more well-rounded. She’s smart, she’s a great leader, she’s level headed in times of crisis, she comes from a long line of decorated Starfleet officers. Why wouldn’t Starfleet fast track her?

So it’s really no surprise when they offer her her own command after only two years and change of being a first officer. 

They officially share quarters on the _Ironwood_ , so there’s really no secrets.

“It’s an Intrepid-class,” Kathryn says. “She’s called _Voyager_.” 

oooo

She has to spend a fair amount of time convincing him that he should keep his commission. 

“If we can’t serve on the same ship, what’s the point?” he asks. “There’s plenty I could do outside of Starfleet. We could get a house, maybe. Think about… well, if we wanted to start a family, I could take care of them while you’re gone.” 

She thinks about how much time she spent just waiting for her father to come home. And when he did, it wasn’t for very long and then the endless waiting just started over again. 

“Just, take a short term assignment. Six months, we’ll see what this lifestyle is actually like and then re-evaluate,” she says and he agrees to this, though she’s not sure if it's really what he wants. 

She wants a family, she wants that life with him, but she’s a Captain now and she wants a few years of that under her belt.

“A baby by forty,” she says. “A very achievable, realistic goal.” It’s only three years away, after all, and three years on _Voyager_ will give her a ton of experience. Maybe by then she’ll want a little break. 

Her first assignment is to track down a Maquis ship that is hiding out in the Badlands. Starfleet thinks _Voyager’s_ innovative new design will withstand that treacherous area of space. She takes her orders from Admiral Shahzad now, and when she looks at the scans of the Badlands, she knows she’s going to need an extraordinary pilot to navigate them.

“Admiral,” she says. “You and I both know Tom is the best in the fleet.”

“You cannot command your own partner, you know that,” Shahzad says. 

“I understand that,” she says. “This one be a one time request, a unique situation. Just on loan.”

“Captain-”

“Frankly, I think he’s probably the one you need on this mission instead of me,” she says. “If we’re being completely honest.” 

Admiral Shahzad sighs, rolls her head. They’re all tired, this Maquis thing has blown up to an unexpected size and they’re all just playing catch up.

“Okay,” she says. “All right.” 

“We have a very long history of working together very successfully-”

“Okay!” Shahzad says. “But he needs to take his commands from Lieutenant Commander Cavit and it’s just for these two weeks. And then you two need to sort out your future on your own.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she says. 

She understands Shahzad’s hesitation, she gets why she can’t command Tom and love him at the same time. Those regulations are in place for good reason, but the need for his skill outweighs that in this circumstance. 

And so Tom boards Voyager. He doesn’t even bring any personal items, gets assigned guest quarters, understands that they have to tread very, very lightly. Be extremely careful. Exceptionally professional. 

They can do it. It’s her first command. She’s not going to let anything screw it up. She’s walked every inch of this ship, has spent hours memorizing specs and schematics. She’s handpicked her crew. When they leave Jupiter Station, she’s confident, authoritative, and ready.

Tom flies beautifully through the Badlands; they’d poured over his flight plan, accounted for all contingencies. 

It’s just that whatever it is that overtakes them, the displacement wave, is not a contingency they’d considered. Not something she could have invented in her wildest dreams.

Conduits blow, they all get rattled pretty good. When she gets to her feet, already worried about explaining how she’d broken her brand new, state of the art ship to her superiors, she sees Lieutenant Commander Cavit at her feet, his face burned and his eyes open and devoid of life. Her crisis management experience takes over, shutting her off from the sentimental part of her brain and compartmentalizing her dead first officer for examination at another time. 

She can see over Cavit's body that Tom is just climbing back into his chair.

“Mr. Kim,” she says, her throat hurting from the smoky air. The recyclers must be malfunctioning. “Damage report!” 

Ensign Kim rattles off the expected - a hull breach on deck fourteen, the comm lines fried. He works on getting them back up, forcefields seal the breach until a repair crew can get there. 

Tom keeps tapping at his console, reading something, shaking his head, tapping again more quickly, until finally, he says, “Captain.”

Ensign Kim is still describing what the sensors can see, some big object, huge and stationary and very close to _Voyager_.

She lifts her finger to Tom, intent on letting Kim finish.

“Captain-” he says again.

“Hang on,” she says.

And then, very softly, so quietly. “Kathryn.” 

She whips around on a wave of irritation. Her ship is broken, her first officer is dead, casualties and deaths are rolling in and there’s something very menacing on the horizon and he has the audacity to be insubordinate in front of what’s left of her bridge crew and… and then she sees his face.

“What?” she says.

“According to this, we’re over seventy thousand light years from where we were,” he says. And this he says loudly and clearly.

It’s such a huge distance, she almost can’t wrap her head around it. It can’t be real. That wave must have fried more than a few consoles. Maybe the whole deflector dish. 

“Ensign Kim,” she says. 

“I… concur,” Kim says, his face ashen. 

“Warp?” she asks quietly.

“Not even impulse right now,” Tom says. 

“Get down to sickbay,” she says to him. “They’re going to need you there. Mr. Rollins, you have the bridge. Mr. Kim, with me. We’re going to Engineering.”

oooo

Tom isn’t supposed to be here. He’s acutely aware of this. He has guest quarters, he’s on loan. What if Admiral Shahzad had said no? Given her a different pilot? He’d be at home, waiting for her to come home and she never would. 

He can’t imagine anything more horrible. The situation they’re in is bad, yes, but at least they’re together. She’s going to clam up, he knows. She’s going to try to push him away, maintain a structure of Command, do everything on her own. But they’ve been together for eight years and their relationship is documented, out in the open, by no means a secret. He won’t let her sweep it away. 

He’s running on no sleep, they’ve all been awake for nearly two days trying to make sure they don’t lose the ship. She wants to go over to that structure, there’s some sort of lifesign, but they all need a meal and a shower before they go. 

“Fuck it,” he says, and leaves his quarters. Lets the ship direct him to hers.

He rings her chime. It takes her a minute to open the doors. She’s clean, has a fresh uniform on but her hair is down. It’s so long now, he tells her all the time that he loves it. 

“I love you,” he says, as soon as the door opens. 

And he sees it on her face, the internal battle she’s waging. She wants to tell him no, to send him away. 

“You’re the love of my life,” he says. “I just… want you to know that I love you and that's never going to go away.”

 _Please don’t do this_ , he thinks when she's quiet, when she stares at him, mouth open, unsure of her next step. 

But after what feels like an eternity, she moves aside. Relents. When the door hisses closed, she throws herself against him, hugs him. “I love you, too,” she says, her voice watery. 

“We’re going to survive this,” he says. “This ship, this crew, and you and me.”

She nods.

“And we’re not breaking up,” he says. “No matter what.”

She hesitates, pulls away. “But-”

“Nope,” he says. “No buts.”

“Tom, I'm the-”

“I can follow your orders, I always have,” he says. “I told you once I’d follow you to the end of the universe. Well guess what, baby? Here we are. And we’re staying together.”

She smiles that crooked smile he loves so much, wipes her eyes even though they keep brimming up, spilling over. But now she's nodding. “Okay,” she says. “Together.” 

The relief is like a drug. He’s never felt so elated, ever. 

“But Tom,” she says, reaching out to take his hand and squeeze it hard. “Don’t call me baby.”

He grins. “Yes, ma’am.”


End file.
